Alternative History:Point of Divergence Ideas

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Free Ideas

 * Hinge moments - Alternate histories caused by single isolated decisions or events.
 * Alternate trends - Alternate histories caused by many small changes to OTL resulting in a general large scale change.
 * Counterfactualities - Alternate histories caused by introduction of completely alien element to OTL.

Projects in development

 * List of Althists
 * POD

Pre-History (13.7 Billion to 5000 B.C.)

 * The North Atlantic Ocean opens slightly to the West, leaving Greenland attached to the top of Scotland.
 * Or...the preshistoric area known as Doggerland, a landmass across the North Sea linking Britain with mainland europe was higher and never sank? Britain wouldn't be able to rely on their navy for protection.
 * Super eruption at Mount Toba in 74,000 BCE doesn't occur - quicker human expansion across the world?
 * Earth shifts so OTL panama is the North pole
 * No Thera/Santorini eruption, Minoan culture spreads around the Med rather than the Greeks?
 * Homo sapiens does not evolve - different human race?
 * Merpeople evolve, possibly from Homo sapiens.
 * Homo sapiens has the same fear of water as chimpanzees, meaning no small boats, a later leaving of Africa, no colonisation of the America's, Australia, Madagasar etc - other species of human possibly have no fear of water?
 * Later discovery of Agriculture?
 * Earlier discovery of Agriculture?
 * Mammoths do not become extinct after the Ice-Age. They roam England, Europe, Russia, and parts of North America. Some are used them the way elephants are used in India.
 * Mastodons do not become extinct after the Ice-Age. Native Americans in Florida use them the same way elephants are used in Asia.
 * Horses do not become extinct in America after the ice age, Plains people become supreme horsemen like the Mongols, Native American Genghis Khan?
 * The Drake passage does not open 20 to 40 million years ago, leaving Antartica attached to South America and with no ice sheet.
 * Australian megafauna (rhino-sized wombats, sheep-sized echidnas and very large kangaroos) do not go extinct. How would this effect the development of Aboriginal society? Could the magafauna be domesticated?

Ancient History (4999 B.C. to 476 A.D.)

 * Ramses II dies at the Battle of Kadesh.
 * King Tutankhamun lives to 60 years old.
 * Alexander the Great has a son early enough who takes after his father.
 * One of Alexander's successors manages to defeat all the others and reunites the empire. (Maybe Antigonus at Ipsus?)
 * During the Corinthian War, Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, but if not the Spartans may have won comprehensively?
 * We know in OTL, around 300 B.C.E the Indian Emperor Ashoka send missionaries and ambassadors throughout the world to spread the new faith of Buddhism, and some of them reached the Eastern Mediterranean. What if they were able to maintain communities of followers and grow a Buddhist presence in the west?
 * Queen of the Iceni, Boudica expells the Roman emperor Nero and Roman empire from the island of Britannia, what would happen the the modern British Isles?
 * What if ancient egyptians discovered the Americas?
 * What if the Secret Gospel of Mark (which says that Jesus and Lazarus became lovers after he was brought back from the dead) was incorporated into the Christian canon? How would this affect Christian attitudes toward homosexuality? Variant: Jesus is already married to Mary Magdalene, who marries Lazarus after the Crucifixion.
 * What if the Christian nudist movement known as the Adamites became mainstream? The Adamites were a recognized Gnostic heresy in the 200s-300s AD, and resurfaced at various points during the subsequent years, culminating in the neo-Adamites of the 1700s. How would this have altered the culture?
 * The Crisis of the Third Century- The Gallic Empire and the Palmyrene Empire remain seperate from the Roman Empire.
 * Attila the Hun wins the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and founds a longlasting hunnic empire.
 * Qin Shi Huangdi - First emperor of China dies as a child - no China, No unified nation in that area? Or he gets assassinated in 226BC by Jing Ke as almost happened except this time Jing Ke aims correctly and doesn't miss Zheng He (what Qin Shi Huangdi was called before he became emperor of all China.) while throwing the poisoned knife that would have definitely killed him if it punctured the skin.
 * What if Saint Paul instead of travelling throughout Rome travelled East to Persia, India, and possibly even as far as China? How would this affect Christian thought? Christianity in Europe? Et cetera.
 * What if Jesus visited Pontius Pilate after his ressurection and Pilate became a Christian? Could he have helped stop persecution of Christians in Judea? Would St. Paul have become a Christian if hadn't been persecuting them? How would this affect Christianity in the Near East?

Middle Ages (477 to 1453 A.D.)

 * During the Tang, China vassalizes the states of India. Ever since, India has been under Chinese cultural hegemony, much like Japan, Korea, or Vietnam.
 * Field Effect - Area 51 undertakes the development of a faster-than-light propulsion system. When it goes online for the test the field it produces sends the entire base 1,300 years into the past and make contact with the fremont people. They start trading black-powder weapons, and the included knowledge necessary for these weapons, for food and water. After a while the tribes learn how to find the materials to produce their own weapons, allowing them through experimentation to develop fully-automatic weapons one thousand years ago. When Europeans show up you should be able to guess what will happen.
 * What if the An Shi rebellion was successful in toppling the Tang Dynasty? Would a new dynasty be able to rise, or would China fall into chaos?
 * The Christians win the Crusades.
 * Big Little Ice Age?
 * No Black Death.
 * Balloons, airships, gliders, and/or aeroplanes are invented several centuries early (i.e., before the OTL Age of Exploration).
 * The Mongol Hordes invade and conquest Western Europe and most of Northern Africa.
 * King Stephen of England is succeeded by his son William
 * Owain Glyndŵr the first Prince of Wales kicks the English, (under Henry IV), out of Wales in an uprising in 1410 causing the Welsh nation to become independant to modern times? One possible outcome of that idea is that you get a 'European Community' a lot earlier...
 * Matilda beats her cousin Stephen for the crown of England. Changes the right of women to the throne to be the same as men. Meaning after Richard I (lionheart) dies, the throne passes not to King John but to Queen Matilda II.
 * King John is not forced to sign Magna Carta by the Barons
 * Italy is unified much before OTL, around the 1300's. What would have happened on Italy and on the world?
 * Kublai Khan's invasion of Japan attain success.
 * Mongolians are the first to discover America.
 * May 878. King Alfred of Wessex takes refuge from the Danes on the Isle of Athelney, Wessex - the precurser of England had been reduced to a few acres in size, what if the Danes had found Athelney and destroyed it and everyone there? No England. The Danelaw extended over all of what is now the UK.
 * Emperor Basil II of the Byzantine Empire marries one of his nieces off to a competent successor, giving the Byzantines a strong empire after his death in 1025 who manages to prevent the Muslims from seizing much of Anatolia.
 * What if Khosrau of Persia did not declare war on the Byzantines, leaving the Sassanid and Byzantine Empires stronger and more likely to cooperate against the Islamic invasions?
 * Sassanid Emperor Kavadh I does not get deposed in 496 and remains a strong supporter of the Mazdaki sect, resulting in Mazdak's religion replacing Zoroastrianism as the main religion of the Sassanid Empire.

Renaissance (1454 to 1600 A.D.)

 * Spanish are defeated by Aztecs and then Mayans colonize Spain.
 * Oda Nobunaga survives the assassination attempt at Honnoji during the 16th century Japanese Warring States period, continuing his quest for the unification of Japan under the Oda clan. --れび (talk to Lavi!) 19:44, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Martin Luther is killed by the Inquisition. There is no Protestant Reformation.
 * In 1478, after a Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Sixtus IV start a war that engulfes europe.
 * Catherine of Aragon has a son by Henry VIII of England
 * Catherine of Aragon doesn't have a son, but Anne Boleyn does.
 * Queen Elizabeth I of England accepted the Marriage proposal of Ivan IV (the terrible) of Russia

Seventeenth century (1601 to 1700 A.D.)

 * The Royalists win the English Civil war.
 * Oliver Cromwell elects someone other than his son the become Protector of England, no return to monarchy? How about John Milton?
 * Bohdan Khmelnytsky (leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks) does not accept overlordship by the Russian Tsar, and, instead, decides to link himself and the Cossacks more closely to their old enemy, Poland-Lithuania, or to the Ottoman Empire.
 * The Dutch keep New Amsterdam (which would otherwise become OTL New York City) in 1664.
 * What if James II fled to America in 1688 instead of France? Maryland was a predominately Catholic colony, perfect for a Catholic monarch
 * Władysław IV Vasa becomes Tsar of Russia.
 * The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth becomes a major superpower.
 * The Gunpowder Conspiracy is not discovered, leading to (for the time) a major atrocity.

Eighteenth century (1701 to 1800 A.D.)

 * Washington joins the Royal Navy instead of the British army.
 * Sweden wins the Great Northern War
 * Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes King Charles III of England and Scotland after defeating George II in the 1745 Jacobite rising.
 * France wins the Seven Years War.
 * For Want of Socks or For Want of A Boat: What if Washington's soldiers refused to cross the Delaware until they got shoes, socks, and proper clothing? Perhaps American victory would be delayed. A similar POD: What if the three boats used to cross the Delaware collapsed as they pushed them into the river?
 * Elizabeth's 1741 coup agaist Ivan VI failes.
 * Prince Henry of Prussia becomes King of America.

Nineteenth century (1801 to 1900 A.D.)

 * The Battle of the Alamo was won by the Texans.
 * Cornelius Vanderbilt dies in the Hightstown rail accident of 1833. Thus, he does not go on to become a major railroad tycoon in the mid-late 19th century, and thus, there is no Vanderbilt fortune.
 * Napoleon dies after being wounded at Toulon.
 * Andres Novales successfully convinced his brother to let him in at Fort Santago. A Philippine Empire in 1823? Earlier and more countries accepting Meiji style-reforms? What about Mexico, Spain and Colonialism?
 * Or...During the Phillipine-American War, (in OTL) Sun Yat-Sen sent a ship loaded with thousands of rifles and artillery to the Filipinos. In OTL it sank in a storm...but what if it didn't?
 * Canada is annexed by the US in 1867.
 * Napoleon does not betray Spain or invade Russia.
 * Vittorio Emmanuele II and Giussepe Gribaldi die without desendance on Sardinia-Piedemont. Italy is never unified.
 * The General Sherman incident in Korea sparks a war with the US, Britain, and France against Korea, forcing the latter to modernize.
 * 1893: Doomsday - Where aliens / meteors hit earth in 1893 destroying much of civilization.
 * What if the Southern States abolished slavery right before the outbreak of the Civil War?
 * What if Princess Elizabeth of Clarence didn't die young and Victoria never became queen?
 * A compromise is made over the design of the tricolour and the French monarchy is restored.
 * The Union in peril. John Wilkes Booth kills President Abraham Lincoln and Vice President Andrew Johnson, and injures Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stanton becomes the new President of the United States. Considering the killings an act of war, he blames the Confederate states. Second Civil War begins.
 * John Wilkes Booth misses Lincoln.
 * Henry Clay becomes President in 1840.
 * The defeated Confederacy turns to Socialism.
 * Marie and Pierre Curie, with the help of Henri Becquerel, built the first nuclear weapon in a basement of the University of Paris. As a result of it, France win the World War I and become a superpower.
 * President-elect Franklin Pierce does not survive the train wreck in Andover and William Rufus King becomes President, only to die soon after, making David Rice Atchison the President.
 * What if Spain managed to stop the revolutions of Cuba and Philippines, preventing the Spanish American War from happening?
 * What if King Amadeo I of Spain managed to hold onto the throne?
 * What if the Spanish Republic managed to strengthen itself and solidify its position?

World at War (1901 to 1945 A.D.)

 * Adolf Hitler gets accepted into art school at the Academy of Fine Art Vienna, on his second attempt in 1908.
 * In 20th century, a pandemic disease goes on to kill many people... But only whites with blond hair and/or light eye colours. A large part of the population of Europe, USA, USSR/Russia and Australia die, and widespread immigration rates try to "conquer" those nice, now-unpopulated lands. A possible name is BlonDie or Blond Death (for the old "Black Death").
 * With the agreement of the British, Hitler deports all the Jews in the Third Reich to British Palestine in the late 1930s - No holocaust.
 * Four Degrees of Separation. Albert Einstein, FDR, Hitler, and Stalin are all killed in the early 20s. No nukes, longer Depression in America (leading to an extremist coming to power, Commie or Fascist, whichever), a slow rise of Moderate Fascism in Germany (getting power much later and not in the large degree it had), and a menacing Soviet Union that's getting very powerful without the loss from the Great Purge.
 * In 1921 promising German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein dies during his first visit to the USA. He never makes contact with Ernest Rutherford or Leó Szilárd and the Manhattan Project never born. A world without useful atomic energy or Nuclear Bomb, a world without the Person of the Century. Nein
 * Herbert Hoover vetoes the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, and this leads to a different WWII.
 * The Spanish Republic manages to defeat the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War and turns communist.
 * The Spanish Republic manages to defeat the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War and remains a democracy.
 * The Spanish Civil War is avoided.
 * Hitler declares war on Japan immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbour.
 * The Nazis win World War II.
 * King Edward VIII decides to put his country before his love for Wallis Simpson, he does not abdicate. A different ending for WWII?
 * Hitler doesn't kill himself, but hides in Switzerland? That's a classic.
 * What if the Hiroshima nuclear bomb didn't ever happen and Japan fights to the death?
 * Elvis's twin brother Jesse doesn't die at birth. The Kings of Rock and Roll?
 * Red America. After the Russian government arrested the Bolsheviks and outlawed their Party, Lenin flees to the United States months before the world War I breaks out in Europe. He establishes the American Communist Party, a minor political force until the Great Depression, when it becomes the most powerful party in the USA, pointing Vladimir Illych Ulyanov, 'Lenin', as his presidential candidate.
 * What if the United States aided Germany during the First World War?
 * What if Germany had renewed the League of the Three Emperors, possibly resulting an unstable German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian Alliance in WW1.
 * What if Hitler put more military effort on the Eastern Front during the final days of the Third Reich?
 * Hitler finishes off Western Europe (France, UK etc) before attacking the Soviets.
 * The Easter Rising fails completely, treating it as an act of 'sabotage' the British Government in effect establishes military Government in Ireland.
 * The General Strike is declared 'illegal' by the British Government.
 * Lenin dies unexpectedly in exile before the Russian revolution.
 * Germany becomes communist instead of fascist after World War 1.

Cold War (1946 to 1991 A.D.)

 * What if the USS Enterprise was turned into a WWII naval museum rather than being mothballed and helped increase awareness for the US Navy?
 * New housing construction in the United States does not consist mostly of single-family detached homes in isolated suburbs, but, instead, sticks to a somewhat denser form of housing development and mixed-use communities, like those common in the 19th and early 20th century. Also, automobiles are not as common.
 * The 1973 coup d'etat in Chile fails and President Salvador Allende makes Chile a communist country.
 * The UK returns the British mandate of Palestine to the Palestinians, no Israel, a more peaceful Middle East?
 * The US Interstate highway program is never started, because Congress fails to produce a workable program.
 * The US does not withdraw Railway Post Office designation from passenger trains over the period from 1948 to 1980. Nor does it withdraw the resulting subsidies, and thus Amtrak is not established.
 * Israel loses the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
 * Israel loses the 1967 six-day war.
 * The Far Eastern Republic, Abkhazia, Poland and Tuva are made into Soviet Socialist Republics and The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic wasn't merged with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
 * Belarus, Ukraine, South Africa and Kazakhstan have nuclear weapons.
 * 12th October 1984. A bomb planted by Irish Republican terrorists explodes in a hotel in Brighton. OTL Thatcher survives, but if not?
 * 4th April 1984. At Greenham Common a Peace Camp is evicted, OTL thing went peacefully. What if things got nasty, and police end up killing a protester?
 * Early 1980's. In computing circles there is a myth that a key timing component in the BBC Micro had to be fixed moments before the BBC evaluators arrived. Assuming the circuit failed during the demonstration what is the outcome for UK computer history?
 * Late 1940's. US refuses to grant 'aid' to the UK. (OTL The US eventually relented).
 * 1984. Miner's Strike - A clash at a pit descends into a pitched battle, and things get very ugly, resulting in the first use of the replacement of the Riot Act.
 * Mid 1970's. By a quirk of logic the Great Central is mothballed rather than closed.
 * Mid 1960's. The London Extension of the Great Central, is electrified at 1500v DC rather than the West Coast Main line. 1500v dc becomes the de-facto rail voltage in the UK. It's not unusual to see dual voltage locos switching from pantograph to third rail at speed.
 * 1981. The Provisional IRA gets hold of a 10 kilatonne nuclear bomb. Where would they plant it and what would have happened? (maybe the time of the Hunger Strikes would have been an interesting time to put this. And I really don't think the IRA were interested in massive civilians casualties, or the gigantic opprobium a nuke would have attracted - so maybe some remote purely military target. Or possibly putting it in the hands of some virulent splinter group)
 * Apartheid leads South Africa into a bloody civil war.
 * Patton doesn't die in 1945. How would the Korean War turn out?
 * Chris Curry and Clive Sinclair do not fall out in 1978.
 * Taking advantage of the oil crisis, the USSR invade the United States and Japan in 1973.
 * The Once and Present King. After Lyndon B. Johnson dies of a heart stroke John F. Kennedy chooses rev. Martin Luther King as his vice presidential candidate. When Kennedy dies in Dallas, King becomes the first Afro-American President of the USA. What happens next?
 * It is the mid 1970's. As Harold Wilson prepares to make a speech at a conference, a radicalized member of the provisional IRA takes aim with a snipers precision. (Title: Murphy's Magic Bullet).
 * Early 1980's. A lucky shot by the Argentine Navy cripples a highly significant vessel (HMS Invincible or even the RMS QE2 maybe?) in the Falklands task force. (Even with this, a British victory is possible although somewhat delayed). (this actually happened - Imp)
 * President Ronald Reagan was shot and killed by John Hinckley, Jr. There's no Perestroika. The Cold War continues to the present day.
 * Wasteland. All four reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear plant explode during a systems test, (in OTL only the fourth reactor was exposed in the accident). The resulting fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over a huge geographical area. Most of the western Soviet Union and Europe had to be evacuated. In the following years, the European countries are burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident.
 * Or...the accident at Chernobyl didn't occur, leading to more (and safer, due to more research money) nuclear power.
 * Pope John Paul II is killed in 1981 assassination. Triggers a popular uprising in Poland and the earlier break up of the Soviet sphere of influence, or possibly a nuclear confrontation between the USA and USSR.
 * What if the shuttle program was ditched for a program to go to Mars in the late-70s and early-80s and leads to the colonization race of Mars?
 * In the event of a moon disaster. The Apollo XI mission crashes into the moon before landing. Nixon cancels the Apollo program and the USSR wins the space race.
 * The Stonewall Massacre: June 1969 - a confrontation between NYPD Morals Squad officers and homosexual patrons of the Stonewall Inn turns violent. NYPD Tactical Response Force officers open fire on the unruly crowd. By the time the dust has cleared, 36 people are dead, including 6 NYPD officers and a journalist, hundreds more are injured, and two blocks of Greenwich Village are in ruins. Does the police's violent response hasten the burgeoning gay rights movement, or drive it back into the closet?
 * In late Nov 1956 the yacht Grandma sinks in south of Cuba taking 82 Cuban revolutionaries (Known as the 26th of July Movement), including the Castro Brothers and Che Guevara to the bottom of the ocean. No Cuban revolution?
 * The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was successful.
 * The Civil Rights Act is not passed.
 * What if the US military had unified into one force headed by the Army right after WWII?
 * Nixon resolutely refuses to resign.
 * The Quebec referendum of 1980 polls in favor of Quebec sovereignty.
 * The United Kingdom does not decide to declare war on Argentina, after they annex the Falklands. Due to feelings of abandonment, do the citizens of the Falklands become friendly to there occupiers?
 * Around 1981-82 The Provisional IRA hijack a freight train, the shipment is nuclear waste material heading to Windscale...
 * It is revealed by a British Newspaper that 'White' South Africa has an active biological weapons programme.
 * Martin McGuniess is 'deposed' by elements inside the IRA's Army Council...
 * Saturn Five, production is pauseed instead of out right canceled, limited work is done on upgrades alongside Shuttle development. Result is a Shuttle system that a mix of OTL Saturn Five and Shutte Tec.
 * Apartheid system in South Africa succeeds, Nelson Mandela is killed, National Party suppressed anti-apartheid movements.
 * If Stanislav Petrov, Lieutenant Colonel of Soviet Air Defence Forces that detected the false alarm, wasn't there at all in 26 September 1983.

Modern Times (1992 A.D. to Today)

 * 9/11 does not happen because of CIA warnings being heeded by Bush, which leads to a different war on terror.
 * On March 2nd, 2008, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela sent 10 Armed Forces Batallions to the border of Columbia. What if this had sparked a Columbian invasion of Venezuela, (with US backing)?
 * 1st May 1999. A protest in the City of London descends into a riot. OTL police did not resort to rubber bullets. What if they were used?
 * It's the late 1990's, a seemingly minor anomaly in readings from a Shuttle Mission leads to the Discovery of a previously unknown capsule of Soviet origin. Inside are 2 bodies...
 * Space shuttle Columbia doesn't break up on re-entry.
 * Saddam and Qusay Hussain are killed in the Dora Farms raid March 19th 2003. Early end to the war?
 * 6 May 2002. Controversal Dutch political leader Pim Fortuyn is assassinated just nine days before elections. What would have happened if the assassination failed, or never happened at all?
 * What if Counter-Strike wasn't created? What if there wouldn't be any gore games such as Manhunt, Quake, Prey?
 * Many states secede after the Deepwater Horizon incident.
 * The Amtrak Reform Committee succeeds at de-funding Amtrak in 2007. How would the passenger railroad system of the USA be affected? What would change?
 * Gordon Brown is pressured into letting banks 'fail' due to EU rules on state aid?
 * The spy who leaked the information on the 2006 Ontario terroism plot never does so, and the attack goes underway. ( Parliament shooting; Beheading of Prime Minister.)
 * What if SYRIZA won the 2012 Greek election?
 * Revolution in Russia in 2011. Navalny elect to president of Russia. Russia joins EU.
 * Richard Harris lives through the third and fourth Harry Potter movies.

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