Interesting 'What If'/Alternative Gaming Possibility

[Correus]

Ave Omnes!!

I ran across a book tonight while looking for another.

First thing I thought of was BD's bireme and than the prospect of how this theme could be played out on the table top.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanicus_trilogy#Ships

What do you all think?

BTW - I have not read this book - not sure if I want to.

Vale ~

[Parus Ater]

I've thought similar things about a book called Invasion about the successful landing of Germans in Britain in 1940 and the British counter attack. Came back into my head when I heard about Warlord buying BEF.
It's a good, fun idea.

[zedeyejoe]

My favourite alternate history is about a man who uses time travel to go back to the Roman era and teaches them about health care including using tissues. The empire expands rapidly driven by population pressure. They expand throughout the solar system, realise that the mass of humanity will exceed the mass of the solar system, develop time travel of their own and send a volunteer (out of the millions that applied) to shoot that scientist before he goes back in time to 'help' humanity.

[Fury]

I like alternative history, so I may have to check that one out. I think the first book in the genre I read was Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp. Interesting if you accept the premise of a modern day archaeologist who ends up in 6th century Rome. In general, I prefer stories with a natural divergent history instead of plot devices like time travel.

[zedeyejoe]

Indeed, in Lest Darkness Fall he used his knowledge of history to change it. Still did not get gunpowder to work though.

[Correus]

Hmmm...I'll have to check out 'Lest Darkness Fall'.

[FrontierWilf]

There's also a nice Roman bi-plane and some sketches of this 'sand galley' from other angles on the artist's blog (he's James Gurney, who did the 'Dinotopia' books) http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/ ... story.html

[Cubster]

I've often wondered what would have happened if the Valkyrie plot would've succeeded and Hitler had been assassinated. What if the Generals taking power would've offed all the radical Nazis, made an immediate peace with the West and then begged their help in dealing with the Soviet Union? Would the US have been able to resist the chance to curtail communism? Would Britain have been too war-weary by then or would they have joined in too? Would the Soviets have merrily conducted the war on all fronts, European and Asian? Would they have allied with Japan?

[zedeyejoe]

End of war in Europe. I think no quicker end to war in Asia - after all in the real world Japanese continued to fight after the German surrender.

No fighting against the Soviets. Roosevelt was quite a fan of Stalin and there is no reason to think that Stalin would not have kept to the agreement to attack Japan 90 days after the Germany was defeated as per the agreement at Tehran.

So the world ends up fairly much as it did but without the Soviet dominance in Europe - which of course now is over. A little less destruction in Europe which would have meant an easier time all round - and a sooner end to rationing in the UK.

[clivethecelt]

Given how far the Germans had driven into Russia, and the atrocities committed on both sides, would the Eastern Front have halted? And what of the Final Solution? Would Germany have sued for peace with the West alone? Probably. Churchill was always wary of Stalin, and the Soviet ideology may have been OK with Roosevelt, but would the US have left Russian as the pre-eminent power in Europe, with all the old nations bankrupt and broken? I think not; also, the advances in certain sciences in Germany would have been developed in the "West", and we might have had a early Cold War in Europe, with a Pacific conflict raging concurrently. Who knows what Kim Philby-types might have traded between east and west, with what consequences ... the Czech missile crisis, anyone?
The only war-based time-travel "what if" I recall is Harry Harrison's "Rebel in Time" - a latter-day Confederate sympathiser takes the blueprints etc for the Sten gun back to the time of the ACW, intending to turn back history. Good story; not HH's best, but an interesting premise.