In Rudyard's vid about the coming fall of China (I think that's what it was called), he compared the current PRC to the Ancien Regime, and posed the interesting idea of a Chinese Napoleon rising. Just as a fun thought experiment, assuming that, somehow, the Napoleonic Wars played out in the 21st century with China as France, who would play the roles of the other great powers? Let's say America is Britain because of the thucydides trap, but what of everyone else? Would Russia be the hapsburgs or Spain, for example? Maybe a war between the US and Iran becomes the War of 1812? I'm open to ideas and hoping to make a fun map based on this.

Here's a fun little challenge for you all to try:

Since Whatifalthist likes to predict the future, let's throw in a 4 dimensional variant. Imagine you are living in a past year (it can be any year). From that year in history, predict how you think history will go from then on using ONLY knowledge that would have been available at the time. Remember to consider what kind of person you would be if you were your current age in the year you chose, and consider the understanding of science and history at the time as well. Simply writing history as we know it will not count. Just a few rules:

1. You cannot use the same year as someone else. An exception will be made if you happen to be using the same year as someone else and you post at the same time.

2. Remember htat the understanding of science and the kind of information available to the public wouldn't be the same in the past as it is now.

3. The year you choose MUST be more than a decade in the past. Otherwise you'd literally just be predicting future history lol.

Of course, I will be posting my own later this week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_German_plans_for_the_invasion_of_the_United_States

Interesting read.

Hitler was a big fan of Disney. Imagine a Fatherland-style Axis Victory scenario where Hitler visits the US and tries to get into the brand new Disneyland

So not too long ago, I posted a map of the Fallout world pre-Great War. I did this specifically because alot of people in my generation had Fallout as their introduction to the genre. While working on it, I did some brainstorming on the AH world of Fallout, both based on what we know and what can be inferred in-game. Here are my notes:

-The Sino-Soviet split: The original basis for the split (China believing that Moscow wasn't taking a hard enough line with the West) never changes. However, it seems that the USSR is more friendly towards the US than it was in our world, which indicates that the USSR may have reformed and opened up to America. Perhaps Richard Nixon (who was president in the Fallout universe) himself, eager to take advantage of the split between Moscow and Beijing, decides to visit the USSR instead of China. My assumption is that China never reforms, or its reforms are limited and scaled back by hardliners down the road, while Moscow enters a tense, fluctuating "frenemy" relationship with the United States. In fact, the relationship I imagine is not unlike relations between the West and Russia after the fall of the USSR (before the war in Ukraine that is). However, there is evidence in-game that indicates that the Soviets and the Chinese are ultimately still aligned by the eve of the Great War, although the Soviets play second fiddle to China. I'm guessing that Sino-Soviet relations healed during the resource crisis, while Soviet-American ones worsened, in the decades leading up to the War. It's probably still a red-painted autocracy, but I'd think they would engage in some economic reform in order to survive.

-The European Commonwealth: I think that the European Commonwealth was not as large as the European Union, and only composed the NATO member states during the Cold War. Being an eternal Fifites timeline, I don't think the Warsaw Pact would fall. However, the European Commonwealth eventually takes its own path, and NATO is no longer a consideration by the time of the Great War (IIRC, the European Commonwealth was founded as a way to distance from the US and the Cold War, and it's made clear that the US had no involvement in the Commonwealth's war in the Middle East). Otherwise, there would be more American intervention in the region. I think that the end of the Resource Wars brings total war between the member states of the European Commonwealth and the Warsaw Pact, perhaps even with Soviet involvement.

-Considering that China is the main baddy in the Cold War combined with Europe going it's own way, America's strongest strategic allies would be in the East. Japan, South Korea, and the Republic of China are economic and military powerhouses, and are organized along the same lines as the pre-War United States. The Philippines, Thailand, and maybe South Vietnam are weaker, but would still be filled to the brim with American troops. Their governments may even be controlled by, or part of, the Enclave.

-India is largely non-aligned with the Sino-American cold war, but they'd probably prefer the Americans to the Chinese on the basis that they're further away. India and Pakistan probably get into a nuclear war themselves during the Great War, and are hardly better off than other parts of the world.

-The Middle East is a total mess after the Resource Wars. Israel, which I see staying within the American sphere, would be one of the last states in the Middle East to have positive relations with the West. The rest is dominated, not by Islamists, but by left-leaning Arab nationalists in the mold of Nasser. I'm not sure if Iran, a staunch American ally until the decidedly un-Fifties 1979 revolution, would join that fun. Perhaps Iran remains an American ally, but is basically left to rot when the Resource Wars roll around.

What if the Pig War went hot? Here's some more brainstorming:

-The Pig War happened in 1859, meaning the civil war was right around the corner, as was a contentious election. The Candidates position on the war will factor in alongside their position on slavery.

-If Lincoln wins, the South will still probably secede, and even then the South may take it as the best opportunity to do so while the North is distracted. If this happens, the British are probably going to back the South as a wartime move to weaken the US.

-In our world, the South was counting on British support for economic and political reasons. I doubt anyone actually thought the British were in favor of the peculiar institution on moral or ideological grounds. I also know that some politicians in Britain were in favor of supporting the south, but intervention on their behalf was opposed by the British public. However, with a war against the US, these same politicians can easily sell supporting the South as a wartime measure, as stated above. The British don't even need to do much to support the confederacy directly. They don't want the south to win so much as they want the US weakened. If the south loses the civil war, but Britain still wins the pig war, then that's a win for Britain

-With all the social issues going on in the US, combined with the likelihood of the civil war still breaking out, it's likely the British will win this time around.

-The chances of other european powers getting involved are quite low, although there is still a significant chance. The biggest likelihood would be Russia getting involved and causing the Great Game to go hot, which would likely lead to a general European war that would overshadow the conflict in the States (through the Europeans eyes, of course). The Russians had ideological reasons for not tolerating seperatism, and they were still angry about the Crimean War, so anything is possible. Maybe we see a war where the North is backed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and the South by Britain, France, and the Turks (again, Crimea), but that's all just fun theorizing, I don't really see this escalating too much (said some joker back in 1914), and in all likelihood, they wouldn't really care about the US, only really fighting for their own reasons.

-If it does escalate as I suggested above, it would likely be seen in Europe as the Great Game going hot while forgetting that it started as an Anglo-American war over a pig getting shot. Sorta like how everyone blamed Germany when WW1 started as a Balkan war.

-So my summary is that Britain probably wins due to the Civil War starting. The war could escalate, but probably doesn't. A higher likelihood is that the US and CS end up becoming proxies in the Great Game, meaning the European war I just laid out breaks out a decade or more later.