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Alternate history obsession.

M

Mark Smith

Active Member
So for some context, one of my obsessions is history. I spend a countless amount of time researching historical facts and topics to the point where I can provide very detailed descriptions about a chosen topic. But there are times when I often wonder how history could’ve went a certain way. The most recent example is (“How would the Middle East be different today if all Arab nations had unified with Saudi Arabia after World War II?”

I’ll become so obsessed with it that I’ll spend hours and hours researching history to find ways to make that scenario in my head plausible. Even if I have to go back years and years of history.

Does anyone else experience something similar to this? Even it if isn’t history.
 
I have a strong interest in history, not quite to the extent that you describe but on occasion I have thought of "what if"

I think most historians ask that question from time to time, and there can be many answers... :rolleyes:
 
Has anyone checked out the "Alternate History Hub" on YouTube? I love watching them and the most watched is "What If Christianity never existed?". I am a big fan of the old pagan polytheistic ways.

 
There's another one of my favorite that would get everyone started for those who are on that obsession wavelength.

WHAT IF THE ROMAN EMPIRE NEVER FELL & STILL STANDS STRONG IN THE 21st CENTURY

 
Mark Smith said:
Does anyone else experience something similar to this? Even it if isn’t history.
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With alternate history comes a potential of alternate maps. :cool:

I do this with maps quite frequently. Mentally redrawing boundaries, political and military considerations sometimes taking actual history into account, while other times totally omitting the past.

Often pondering what boundaries would look like based on indigenous tribal considerations rather than foreign imperialists who usually pay little heed to such distinctions.
 
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in a way i have an alternate history interest, im into to a degree the history of israel! i realised what would the map of the middle east look like if Jews had their original country .
i imagine israel being as big as the uk and at archaeological sites there would be no Roman archaeology and everybody would be observant so there will be no findings of pagan gods
 
I find this fascinating. I've read some literature on this, such as Philip K, Dick's Man in the High Castle, and collections of short stories.
 
It is a strong interest of mine, especially since science fiction can do a good job of exploring these alternate histories.

Another way that it works upon my mind is how I would be different if I had taken a different timeline: which is as likely to be bad as good, of course.
 
History is my oldest special interest. I see alternate history as a kind of historical fan fiction. It has little to no value in actual historical studies. But there is nothing wrong with it as a hobby, done just for enjoyment or mental stimulation.
 
Judge said:
With alternate history comes a potential of alternate maps. :cool:

I do this with maps quite frequently. Mentally redrawing boundaries, political and military considerations sometimes taking actual history into account, while other times totally omitting the past.
Click to expand...

This. This describes the type of obsession I have with alternate history. I have several pictures of maps on my phone for that reason. It satisfies me to imagine what I see as a “better” version of history or geography.
 
Mark Smith said:
This. This describes the type of obsession I have with alternate history. I have several pictures of maps on my phone for that reason. It satisfies me to imagine what I see as a “better” version of history or geography.
Click to expand...

Having lived a lifetime being aware of continual political strife in the Middle East, I often wonder how much less this might have been had Britain and France drawn political borders that conformed to tribal and ethnic considerations. And had Turkey and all the indigenous peoples of the area chosen to be more amenable to such a process as well.

Of course I could do this with just about any part of the world with some amusing new borders that might have very different results. :cool:

Pity that so many governments give in so easily to political, economic and military aggrandizement beyond a pragmatic reach of their own realistic borders. Gotta love those faint broken red lines on National Geographic maps indicating lands claimed by other nations, whether they physically and forcefully do or not. Or even borders not officially recognized by major powers.

Not surprising, I loved the tv series "Sliders". About people constantly traveling from one parallel Earth to another. If you ever get the chance to see it, you may like it. :cool:
 
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With the Middle East, if we cancel out Islam and create the world without any Muslim rule, the Eastern Christian Orthodox and the Zoroastrians would indeed take place of Islam.

In Kurdish territories, Yadizi religious followers would establish a Kurdish kingdom in Northern Iraq, Southern Iraq would be in control by another short lived faith called Misoasism. The Jews, the Christian Orthodox and the Zoroastrians could destabilize the Middle East.

Here is where I would base my scenario.




I'll see if these videos would give you good ideas on how politics would be rewritten if we could imagine an Earth or a Middle East without Islam.

It would a fight over oil unless if we were using Nikola Tesla's invention of free energy distributed from his Wardenclyffe tower.

uPGfEj
 
What if northern Europe wasn't so cold?

And more fecund..

Judge said:
continual political strife in the Middle East, I often wonder how much less this might have been had Britain and France drawn political borders that conformed to tribal and ethnic considerations. And had Turkey and all the indigenous peoples of the area chosen to be more
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And if William Knox Darcy didn't exist or rested on his laurels.

Bigger oil finds in other locations instead of the middle East first.

Constantine.
 
Very much! I'm studying to become an author to escape the torture of the open plan office and love writing short stories from history. The areas that fascinate me the most are Europe between 1550 and 1800, the East India Company and French Revolution. Just like your Arab nation theory, I wonder what the world would look like if the East India Company hadn't asset stripped India and doomed Western society to a corporate culture of greed and corruption.
 
Bella Pines said:
if the East India Company hadn't asset stripped India and doomed Western society to a corporate culture of greed and corruption.
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Snap. William Knox Darcy operated in person so he is a more modern example of the same thing.
The british government stepping in to secure it's interests. Forming BP.

But the east india company is the example i always think of when I look at the blurry line between government and corporations.

The idea of democracy,containing the right to have an opinion, perhaps a sop to divide and rule in a more invisible way.
Until more people catch on and they give out another sop to keep us working.
Eventually the whole of man is a servant to an eternal corporation with more individual rights than a human.
 
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