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With all the recent discussion of "Confederate", I thought it would be nice to have an Alternate History thread.

All are welcome! Whether you are interested in the Holy Roman Empire or World War 2, US political history or Ancient Egypt, you can discuss alternate history of history subjects here!

>tfw there will never be an alternate history about Emperor Frederick III not getting throat cancer and successfully leading the German Empire through progressive reforms, culminating in telling Austria-Hungry to suck it up and accept Serbia's offer during the July Crisis

I'm also amazed no one's ever done anything with the Eight Nation Alliance. That seems like ripe AU territory.

My favorite alternative history that I enjoy thinking about is how different the world might look if the US Colonies never broke away from Britain.

Can just look at the cascade of effects that might have never happened if the US colonies never left the British Empire. They might have never expanded west and the Native Americans might have continued to exist a lot longer or might have formed their own country. Or perhaps WW1 wouldn't have lasted as long since Britain would have had a lot more man power it could have brought to fight quicker and possibly have ended it. My favorite is the idea that British empire never broke down and they renamed themselves to Britannia and slowly moved to take over more of the earth using their superior technology.

I sometimes wonder how the landscape of the video game industry would be is certain things were different. One major example is "what if Nintendo and Sony's partnership for the PlayStation as a SNES add-on still happened?" I think for one Nintendo likely wouldn't have suffered the third party problems they had in the mid to late 90s, as companies like Square more than likely would have kept franchises like Final Fantasy on Nintendo's platform.

But at the same time also remember the original PlayStation was an add-on, NOT a new console, and the Sega CD didn't really do the Genesis/Mega Drive any favors. Granted sure the PlayStation add-on probably had a higher chance of doing better if games like Final Fantasy and the like hit the add-on early in life, but then you start to wonder what if the PlayStation failed like the Sega CD. I think if that happened then all gaming companies would have been too reluctant to move on to the CD format as a primary storage method for games, and with Nintendo owning the PlayStation in this alternate history Sony likely would never come out with their own standalone console and thus we'd never have the PlayStation brand as it exists today.

Another big difference I see is Sega probably would have, at the very least, stayed in the console making business longer in this alternate timeline as they'd still only have Nintendo as their main competitor because Sony's working with Nintendo instead of against them. The Dreamcast probably would have been a much bigger success due to no PS2 to later take away all of its sales, but a Nintendo console likely would have still ultimately sold better thanks to higher third party support. I also think that as a result of Sega staying in the console business longer Microsoft would have never made Xbox since the Xbox was made by former Sega employees who left the company after making the Dreamcast and noticing the system just wasn't selling.

You're forgetting that in that scenario Napoleon kicked them out of Europe and the whole thing comes crashing down because of an emo highschooler with magic powers and daddy issues.

One of my favorite and lesser-known AUs is the one where the great depression causes the US to break up into regional nations. Without continent-wide infrastructure Zepplins stayed around. Meaning sky pirates, and Microsoft having the balls to show the game at E3 without announcing a third in the series.

An interesting one is the Operation Sea Lion route of WW2, where Germany attempts an invasion of the UK. Regardless of how that would end up (badly, most historians assume), it would have delayed Barbarossa long enough for the planned Soviet invasion of Germany. Without Europe as a theatre, Japan is more quickly crushed and more resources are given to China to fight the communists after. Cold war map drastically different, and the USSR's response to partisan uprisings in its new territory may provoke a not-yet-nuclear WW3 (remember that Operation Unthinkable was a thing in our timeline, there would be no sphere of influence agreement and the Soviets went pretty genocidy in Poland and CzR).

World War 1 might not have happened with a POD in the 18th century. Remember, a key part of alternate history is the butterfly effect.

>Millard Fillmore did not become President of the United States, which means he would never have sent Commodore Perry to 'negotiate' with Japan to open up trade, meaning we would never have Anime.

People keep talking about the Dark Alternate Timeline, well it don't get much darker than that!

Alternate Music History Idea-
An alternate universe where Duff McKagan never went to his brother for answers on his financial status. He joins The Magpie Salute as a bassist and he never founds his wealth management firm, Meridian Rock. Because of this, thousands of young, aspiring musicians get screwed by the system. The quality of music takes a downturn and soon hard rock dies out altogether because any musician that tried to start a rock band got boned by their investors. Kanye West and Nicki Manaj become the richest musicians in the Western Hemisphere.
Guns N' Roses also never reunites, and they never do the Not in This Lifetime tour.

TL:DR Music is ruined because of the butterfly effect caused by one bassist.