What alternate history ideas you wish they were used more often?

[Catsmate]

Personally, I would say that it is more likely that Esperanto ended up being implemented by a techno-fascist regime (technocrat + fascist) that believes that other languages are both inferior to Esperanto and contrary to scientific effectiveness and efficiency. Only that type of regime would be ruthless and determined enough to carry out an imposition at gunpoint of a language that probably not even members of the ruling elite themselves speak.

Perhaps, though historically there was more interest on the left, before Stalin in '37. Maybe a victorious Republican Spain? Esperanto was popular amonst Spanish anarchists, some groups socialists and the Catalan nationalists.
Alternatively as a common language for a supra-national federation (I used it thus for EuroFed in the EDCverse, leading to genre of paranoid British films and TV portraying the Esperanto Institute as a sinister organisation with the objective of world conquest).

 

[Tupolev0247]

Maria Antonia of Austria lives 20 more years, it would be interesting to see what the transition from Habsburg to Wittelsbach is like for Spain with all the chaos of European politics going on in the background.

Maria Luisa of Savoy (1st wife of Philip V of Spain) lives 10 more years, if she lives Elizabeth Farnese will stay away from Spain, the war of the quadruple alliance will not happen and possibly her son Louis will not get smallpox.

 

[Iam9Begea]

Charles II de Valois, Duke of Orléans
.
Charles II of Orleans was the Third son of Francis I of France. He was previously Duke of Angoulême (the Title of his Father) but after the eldest brother Dauphin (Heir) Francis died, he took on the Duchy of Orleans, while his older brother Henry became Dauphin. Charles was "By all accounts, he was the most handsome of Francis I's sons. Smallpox made him blind in one eye, but it seems that it was not noticeable. He was known for his wild antics, his practical jokes and his extravagance and frivolousness, which his father approved of wholeheartedly.[3][4] He was, by far, his father's favorite son.[5] In addition, he was popular with everyone at his father's court, and it was widely believed that the French nobility of the time would have much preferred to have him as the Dauphin as opposed to his downcast brother, Henry, who never seemed to recover from his years of captivity in Spain.[3]" according to Wikipedia. In 1542, Charles managed to briefly capture Luxembourg before going south to help his brother in Perpignan. Other than that, he had several important marriage prospects. Henry VIII of England offered to bethrow Charles (12 at the time) with the future Queen Elisabeth (1 at the time) in exchange for Francis persuading the Pope to allow Henry to marry Anne Boleyn.

"On 19 September 1544, the Treaty of Crépy was signed. Charles had a choice to marry one either Charles V's daughter or paternal niece. Infanta Maria of Spain was the daughter of Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, and she would bring the Netherlands or the Low Countries of Franche-Comté as her dowry. Archduchess Anna of Austria was the daughter of Ferdinand I, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary, and she would bring Milan as her dowry. As the groom's father, Francis I agreed to endow Charles with Angoulême, Châtellerault, Bourbon and Orléans.

The Peace of Crépy deeply offended Charles' elder brother, the Dauphin Henry, and his wife, Catherine de' Medici. As the heir of Valentina Visconti, Henry considered Milan to be his birthright. More importantly, this settlement would make his brother Charles as powerful as a monarch and link him by marriage to Emperor Charles V, which would divide French interests and create a strategic nightmare. Many historians believe that Charles V hoped to use Charles as an adversary against Henry. Henry wrote a secret denunciation of the pact because it gave away three inalienable Crown properties.[12]"

Thus, you can take this timeline either way; Have the King of France also as King of England (Reverse 1415) or you could have a France that is allied to the HRE and one that is a lot more powerful.
.
Of course, Charles died only at the young age of 23, so is his death preventable? (Which i think is a godsend for any alternate-timeline writing). The answer is yes. Charles and his brother Henry were passing through some town that was infested with "the plague" (likely influenza) and, being the prankster he is, he challanged some of his retunie to a pillow fight with the infected pillows and reportedly accepted a dare to lay in an infected bed and roll in the bedsheets. Afterwards, he quickly got sick and died; His death being really sad for both his father and suprisingly even his brother (Even though they didnt have a good relationship).

So now the Alternate History Part
.
Have Henry instead of Charles take that dare and get the plague that fateful visit. as Henry dies, Charles becomes the new Dauphine. He already is a very powerful ruler in his own right: (This is in 1545 so either a few years before the deaths of Henry VIII and Edward VI, potentially as a powerful advisor to the child Edward VI or it's even possible Henry's marriages are altered and so Edward VI is never born and thus Queen Elisabeth (Who could potentially press her claim before Mary I and kill her) is ruler and Charles is a King. The other possibility is that he leads a quite enlarged France that will be a headache for the HRE in the future after he succeedes his father in 1547). Even without the Althistory marriages he was still a very powerful duke, one that was very popular and with atleast some talent. So imagine this kid succeede his father at the age of 25, and likely reign for a few decades. Keep in mind if he chooses the HRE offer he is also ALLIED to the Habsburgs and can consolidate his power beforehand, and simply wait until the 1550's when Charles V retires. He could also revitalise his alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent and wait for an opportune moment to strike (Perhaps when Charles V is gout-ridden and is trying to split his realm between a Spanish Habsburg and a German/Austrian Habsburg Branch)

"Second Charlemagne". Catchy, isnt it?

(Btw he would be Charles IX)

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

Here are two scenarios I have been thinking about for today:
-The Omani Empire forms an East African trading company in 1700 AD, which allows and helps the Omani Empire to consolidate and expand territory in the Swahili Coast, the Somali Coast, and even Madagascar.
-Muhammad Ali, of Egypt, instead of conquering Sudan, instead sets up a trading company in the early parts of the 1800’s, which brings North Sudan, the eastern part of Libya, the northern part of Chad, much of Eritrea, and even parts of Somalia under Egyptian soft power.

 

[Rickdukulous Rex]

I never see much about actual alternate religions in timelines

 

[raharris1973]

Stuff about women who are not royal, and women's rights and place in society.

How about it?

 

[Mitridates the Great]

If possible, it would be good if the alternate religions were genuine religions...

...not variants of evangelical Protestantism conceived only as a means for the preacher to extract money from believers, or religions that are too noticeable to be "that silly meme I made to mock of religion was going too far and people started taking it seriously.

Like, something that people actually believe in that functions as more than a tool of social control coldly wielded by an elite who give no more thought to their religion than thinking:

"I don't understand how those morons can be so stupid as to believe all this nonsense."

 

[Mildtryth]

If possible, it would be good if the alternate religions were genuine religions...

...not variants of evangelical Protestantism conceived only as a means for the preacher to extract money from believers, or religions that are too noticeable to be "that silly meme I made to mock of religion was going too far and people started taking it seriously.

Like, something that people actually believe in that functions as more than a tool of social control coldly wielded by an elite who give no more thought to their religion than thinking:

"I don't understand how those morons can be so stupid as to believe all this nonsense."

Of course, that would require people to really understand how a society in which religion actually has social weight (which is no longer the case on our own) works, instead of falling into the trap described by Mr. Deveraux here:

What I think this show has fallen into is the assumption – almost always made by someone outside a society looking in – that the local religion is so silly that no one of true intelligence (which always seems to mean ‘the ruling class’ – I am amazed how even blue-collar students will swiftly self-identify with knights and nobles over commoners when reading history) could believe it. This is the mistake my students make – they don’t believe [in] medieval Catholicism or Roman paganism, and so they weakly assume that no one (or at least, none of the ‘really smart’ people) at the time really did either. Of course this is wrong: People in the past believed [in] their own religion.

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Of course, that would require people to really understand how a society in which religion actually has social weight (which is no longer the case on our own) works, instead of falling into the trap described by Mr. Deveraux here:

It's a problem I've encountered all too often.

It's not helped by the fact that most works of fiction tend to treat religion that way: as something so objectively false that, of course, not even its own preachers believe it.

When someone is portrayed as a true believer, it is either as the naïve character that everyone else takes advantage of, or as a cheap Ned Flanders.

Of course, everyone else is only pretending to believe because they believe it will give them economic and political benefits. In addition to what I described as "treating religion as a tool of social control cynically exploited by (non-believer) elites to control the population and keep them ignorant and submissive."

It doesn't help that the alternative is usually novels written by religious American evangelical types who tend to be... ridiculously vocal about their religions and how everyone who doesn't follow them will end up suffering dire karmic punishments.

 

[Iam9Begea]

As someone from Turkey, i can say that People are prone to genuinely believe a LOT of things. Let's think for a second: If you told someone from a timeline where Christianity never existed that the world's largest religion was centered around a Jewish cult about a carpenter who supposedly comes back from execution, he would laugh at you if he doesnt think you are insane. If you told him that 1800 years later, some guy on the other side of Eurasia would claim to be the supposed brother of this Jewish carpenter and that his followers would start one of the deadliest wars in history, he would think you are crazy. Yet this is the timeline we live in. All religions are objectively stupid cults centred around false miracles if you dont believe in them. That is why people generally assume any religion made is just some money-making scheme by a mischivieous "prophet", but people tend to forget that, even from a purely scientific point, that hallucinations and insane people exist. Even in the most cynical outlook, there will always be someone shouting crazy things. And with enough people and time, some of these insane preachers will arrive at a convenient time where people's faith in religion is faltering due to events like wars and natural disasters, and will find an audience. That is why i like to write events in a quasi-"in universe" aproach, to avoid this exact issue and similar ones. Most people look from their established socio-economic lense (often Christianity) towards the TL's they are making, and it can be useful to avoid that. Because in truth, it IS hard for people to imagine themselves believing some other religion or ideology than what they currently believe in, and they apply that logic to other people because you cant exactly have a conversation with people about if they would believe your made up religion easily.

 

[Ed of the Pueblos Libres]

hallucinations and insane people exist

Adding to the thing of people/prophets appearing by time of wars, natural disasters, etc. The Middle East region precisely could be a "focal point"-place for such things in some readings, the heat of the desert and fasting could have done things to the people existing there from centuries ago for all we know.

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

-snip-

I totally agree. Whatever you believe about religion, it isn't categorically a grift, and successful religious communities are built on a foundation that regular people can and do genuinely believe in.
In sociological terms, I think it's best to think of religion as akin to ideology. While many people may simply see democracy, capitalism, communism, or whatever as a tool for exploitation, most people actually see those ideals as worth defending and expanding (for better or for worse) -- and that includes the people who commit atrocities in the name of those ideologies. It is true that Joseph Stalin was a murderous, paranoid tyrant -- but it's also true that he believed in Marxism-Leninism, to some extent. So did Nikita Khrushchev, and while a big part of the Sino-Soviet Split was over political/strategic disputes, part of it was also about ideology (for example, Khrushchev disavowing Stalin's cult of personality, while Mao maintained/expanded his own). On the other side -- it's definitely true that J. Edgar Hoover and Henry Kissinger were ruthless power-mongers who expanded the American military-industrial complex to cracked down on civil liberties and anti-colonial independence movements, but they also genuinely believed in the causes of liberal capitalism, democracy, anti-communism, and American exceptionalism. And in both cases, ideological devotion caused leaders to be pious.
This certainly isn't to say that ideological thought is evil, any more than it is to say that religion is evil -- just that powerful people don't see themselves as villains, even when acting in their own self-interest; and zealotry can provide justification for atrocity, even when it's secular.

 

[imperiusdamian]

Many religions also didn't have "prophets" or preachers per se, especially in the pre-Christian era, because most polytheistic religions historically have been based more around specific rituals than around sacred scriptures and dogmas, and have been heavily intertwined with politics (prime example, the ancient Roman religion where the political structures of the Republic itself were essentially sacred).

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

Many religions also didn't have "prophets" or preachers per se, especially in the pre-Christian era, because most polytheistic religions historically have been based more around specific rituals than around sacred scriptures and dogmas, and have been heavily intertwined with politics (prime example, the ancient Roman religion where the political structures of the Republic itself were essentially sacred).

Some non-"prophetic" religions did have influential leaders, though. For example, ancient Greek religions would be very different without Homer. How would ancient Greek culture look if not for the Homeric hymns and epics? Who could replace Homer in Greek historiography and mythography?

While ancient Greek religions tended to be less organised than modern monotheisms in terms of scripture and doctrine, they did tend to be organised in terms of rites and rituals. There were the official gods of the polis, and the rites thereof; but there were also a host of mystery cults, with their own internal rites, philosophies, and identities (e.g., the Orphean Mysteries, the Dionysian Mysteries, etc).
What if certain mystery cults superseded others in history? For example, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, certain non-Greek deities became the object of Greek cults (e.g., the Mysteries of Isis or the Mysteries of Serapis -- both Greco-Egyptian). What if these Greco-Egyptian cults remained obscure, and were superseded by the Cult of Sabazios? In OTL, Sabazios was a Phrygian/Thracian horseman deity and the patron of Gordium, whom the Greeks syncretised with Zeus; he became the object of cult-worship among the Greeks, but never as popular as Isis or Serapis.

Or, say Alexander's heirs survived. Alexander sired (I think?) two sons -- Alexander IV and Heracles, both by Persian wives. Alexander also had his generals all marry Persian noblewomen at a mass wedding, in order to integrate the ruling classes of the two cultures. Alexander's plan is the opposite of what happened IOTL, where Persia (and Egypt, Syria, etc) were each ruled by a Macedonian ruling caste, largely separate and insulated from the people they ruled over. What impact would this have had over religion? Alexander, like the Achaemenids before him, legitimised himself according to the rites and customs of the various peoples he conquered; so how would Greek religion and Zoroastrianism be shaped by an empire which sought to integrate them? What about other regional religions -- Egyptian? Phoenician/Canaanite? Jewish? Assyrian? Babylonian? Lydian/Anatolian? Scythian? Hindu? Buddhist?

 

[Ed of the Pueblos Libres]

without Homer.

Well...he probably didn't really exist (unlike say, Muhammad or maybe Buddha and Jesus).
Like, seriously, there is a chance you could just have Homer by other name as the Homeric works were probably the result of several authors through time.

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Let us also not forget that in many TL even people who supposedly believe in nothing are portrayed as having other sets of beliefs. I think, for example, of how many protagonists of TL tend to practice a cult of money and the market, in a form of economism where they treat economic theories as if they were unquestionable physical laws, or where their support for science borders on scientism.

 

[Mildtryth]

Let us also not forget that in many TL even people who supposedly believe in nothing are portrayed as having other sets of beliefs. I think, for example, of how many protagonists of TL tend to practice a cult of money and the market, in a form of economism where they treat economic theories as if they were unquestionable physical laws, or where their support for science borders on scientism.

There's a relevant quote for this that I'd like to share:

We may, obviously, as modern men and women, find certain of the fundamental convictions that our ancestors harbored curious and irrational; but this is not because we are somehow more advanced in our thinking than they were, even if we are aware of a greater number of scientific facts. We have simply adopted different conventions of thought and absorbed different prejudices, and so we interpret our experiences according to another set of basic beliefs—beliefs that may, for all we know, blind us to entire dimensions of reality.

Certainly we moderns should not be too quick to congratulate ourselves, or to imagine ourselves as having embraced a more rational approach to the world, simply because we are less prone than were ancient persons to believe in miracles, or demons, or other supernatural agencies. We have no real rational warrant for deploring the “credulity” of the peoples of previous centuries toward the common basic assumptions of their times while implicitly celebrating ourselves for our own largely uncritical obedience to the common basic assumptions of our own.

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

Well...he probably didn't really exist (unlike say, Muhammad or maybe Buddha and Jesus).
Like, seriously, there is a chance you could just have Homer by other name as the Homeric works were probably the result of several authors through time.

That's not the point of the scenario, though. What would Greece be like without Homeric influence? Without the influence of Homer on culture? Without the works attributed to Homer? Homer is most important to history as "the guy who wrote those poems" -- so what if those poems weren't ever written?

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

-snip-

On the note of myths and epics -- I acknowledge that it's "alternative history," but I wish so much of the genre wasn't confined to verifiable history. I'd like to see more historicisation of mythic/folkloric stories. The Trojan War, Arthurian legend, the Old Testament -- these all probably have some root in historical fact, and they've been told and retold long after the facts have been obscured.
Conversely, I'd like to see more mythologisation of history we do know. I'd like to read a tragic heroic epic about Douglass MacArthur -- conqueror of the god-emperor of Japan, who sought to unleash Hellfire upon his enemies, and was humbled by the President for his hubris. It doesn't even have to be a story that's about a new pantheon of gods -- I'm honestly tired of post-apocalyptic cults that worship the US Founding Fathers. But like, there's plenty of legends that relate to modern religions -- Charlemagne is a historical figure, and a Christian legendary hero; ditto Musa ibn Nusayr, as a Muslim.

 

[Iam9Begea]

Adding to the thing of people/prophets appearing by time of wars, natural disasters, etc. The Middle East region precisely could be a "focal point"-place for such things in some readings, the heat of the desert and fasting could have done things to the people existing there from centuries ago for all we know.

Also, Middle East was the centre of learning and a place with an overabundance of polities and wars. All of those make prophets and religions appearing easier. In fact, the last two are exactly what caused the first one. Well, dont take it as a fact, i think it's just one of the mainstream theories, but philospohy and science generally developed in places that were disunited; Ancient Greece, Classical India, Muslim World (Which by the time of the Islamic Golden Age had truly disunited) etc. Imagine you are an Athenian scholar, and you propose X theory, which the Athenian oligarchs dont like. Well, you can simply move to Sparta, or Thebes, or any of the hundreds of other city-states and find a ruler atleast willing to tolerate you. The Middle East also sat on many trade routes, which allowed for goods and ideas to be exchanged. That's why Aleppo had far more thinkers and learners than Mogadishu or Ulanbaatar.