Meh. I don't like any of these.

What about if Byzantium had held out against the Ottoman Empire?

Or Persia winning at Salamis?

@braak: My favorite is if library at Alexandria didn't burn. Just that alone would've made a huge difference.

Gotta agree with Braak. I'm sticking with Three Californias, Eye In The Sky, and Celestial Matters.

I would like to see what would of happened if Ghengis Khan lived.

@TruculentandUnreliable: I'd vote for that one. Or better yet, the Greeks are not subjugated by the Romans. And as a final idea, how about the Vikings take over Europe completely.

Nixon beat Kennedy in 1960 = Watchmen.

I had an interesting email conversation with Jack McDevitt about the Civil War thing a few weeks ago (he even put me in his blog/journal). It wasn't about "what if the South won?" but rather, "what if Lincoln didn't think the Union was worth fighting a bloody, protracted war over?" Good brain-food.

Regarding Nixon beating Kennedy, there's a much more terrifying thing to consider - the Cuban Missile Crisis. How would that have gone down with sweaty, paranoid Tricky Dick in the driver's seat?

what if tesla had never been relived of his position at tesla electic light & manufacturing and had succesfully replaced edison electric?

The one that is just like ours, but everyone's wearing a cowboy hat.

@braak: Harry Turtledove did a book about what would have happened if Byzantium never fell. "Agent of Byzantium". Kind of meh, but not terrible.

[www.amazon.com]

Okay that wasn't based on a change in history but it was pretty funny in Futurama

I'd like to see a novel about an alternate history where the printing press was never invented.

Did I just blow your minds or what?

@tetracycloide: Oooh, I like that one. Electric cars, and television by 1920.

@TruculentandUnreliable: I'm trying to remember the specifics, but I believe that there is documentation in reference to documents at Alexandria regarding a Greek inventors primitve steam engines.

So, that's pretty crazy right there.

Or better yet, The British fail to stop the German Army at the Battle of the Marne. The German empire defeats France... an armistice is reached with Britain. WWI thus never becomes the slaughter that it was. Adolf Hitler stays an obscure painter in Vienna. Lenin is executed by the German Empire. The USSR never exists. The cold war never materializes. Werner Von Braun helps the British to reach the Moon.

What are you talking about? Germans winning WW II gave birth to one of the greatest anime in existence:

[en.wikipedia.org]

But other than that, a North America not dominated by Caucasians definitely sounds the most interesting.

what about if the US had joined the League of Nations after WWI?

@braak: I have wondered for a long time about where the world would be technologically if the Library at Alexandria had never burned down.

I've always wondered what a modern Meso-American civilization would look like. Aztec design is quite beautiful and to extrapolate that aesthetic onto skyscrapers and such is really interesting.

You dare speak ill of Turtledove? Blasphemy!

I vote for a world filled with modern day Aztecs. Fun!

How about the one where Britney Spears isn't insane and is a good mother?

Short of that, I'll like to see what would have happened if the British won the War of 1812. I'd probably be having tea instead of a coke right now. Cheers!

@EBone: Um. They did win. They were just too busy fighting Napoleon to bother re-conquering a bunch of idiotic 'democratic republican' aristocrats.

@aspiringexpatriate: Vive le France!

It's ridiculous how in every alternate history where such-and-such empire never collapsed, all the features of that empire remain in place to the modern day. Like if Rome never fell, OF COURSE there would still be gladiators and togas and orgies today. And the Aztecs would still have pyramids and human sacrifice.

@Vornshar: What are you talking about? Genghis Khan lived to be at least 60 or so. Either way he didn't have a lot of time left and couldn't have accomplished too much more.

Not a major divergence, but I've always wanted to see what would have happened if Mick Jagger had convinced The Beatles to join them on their 1969 U.S. tour (the one that ended at Altamont.)

Weren't some of these Sliders episodes?

I voted for the Aztecs because we don't have enough cities with 5 X's in their names.

How about 'What if the Hippie revolution had succeeded?'

@mumblingmynah: I think the real question is, what if Ghenghis Khan had lived...as an immortal zombie vampire!

Alexander the Great lives to old age.

@Gann: I think Gaiman's The Prez is just that.

- What about our egyptian-alien overlords having never abandoned us?
- Or the Ice Age never rescinded? China/Orient mingling with the Native Americans to form a huge empire?

Japan colonizes California, finds tons of gold, goes to war with the British Empire (of which the US is still a part).

and what if aristotle was right about the nature of the world, and the world is indeed based not on atoms but rather form and matter, people did not evolve, but rather are drawn towards the perfect form which is written the nature of the universe? or if any other pre-scientific philosophy at all was right?

Why don't I see the poll?

I liked the pseudo alternate history of "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" by Orson Scott Card.

The end result is a Meso-american peaceful empire (and eventually a peaceful world) that ends up with future tech by 1950.

Plus the novel involves wormhole based historical viewing system... kind of cool in itself..

Also Making history by Stephen Fry, killing Hitler(preventing his birth) clears the way for a smoother less insane leader who does everything Hitler did but earlier, with more political savvy and worse still finds the infertility agent used to keep Hitler from being born and uses THAT to kill the jewish people..

I think Cortes not believing Cortes was Quetzalcoatl might be the most impressive of the choices given. That would have changed the entire flow of European empirialism. Certainly not prevented it, but altered it drastically. Spain not having the incredible influx of wealth from the Americas that it had (or even not gaining it until later) would have re-ordered Europe and from there all the other powers' interaction with the world. Not having to face off against the Spanish Armada, Britain's resources are funnelled in wholly different directions...the impact is profound and widespread.

Of suggestions not offered above, I would like to see an alternate US history where a different series of presidents upheld treaties with the Six Nations and Cherokee allowing them to develop as sovereign states.

What if giant anthropomorphic pickles evolved and they were all left handed?

The British Empire not falling was done in William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine. Which to be honest I never finished. :-)

@MarlboroTestMonkey7: That last one you mention is a huge chunk of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which is slow, but not a bad book. (The premise: What if the Black Death had killed off 90 percent of Europe, instead of a third?)

Sliders had an episode where the British still ruled the USA. At the end of the episode the black dude gave "the resistance" a copy of the Bill of Rights, which he just happened to carry around with him. Needless to say I stopped watching Sliders after that.

In one short story I've read called "Ubermensch", Superman falls into Nazi Germany and becomes a Nazi, with Lex Luthor being a famous Jewish hero for capturing him.

How about if the Hindenburg hadn't caught fire?

BY YIG_ON_A_BLIMP AT 12:48 PM

"The one that is just like ours, but everyone's wearing a cowboy hat."

You mean Texas?

How about if the Christians hadn't stopped the Muslims at Venice?

COLLINXVI... Card is writing a 2nd book in the pastwatch series. I too enjoyed the Christopher Columbus one. I also enjoyed "making history"

Trotsky takes control of Russia, after Stalin is killed by an unknown assassin (sent from the future). The Cold War never happens.

I have an interesting historical alternative. Emperor Constantine never adopts Christianity as the official state religion. Does it disappear into history? No doubt Mohammad was influenced by Byzantine Christians so does Islam ever come to be? What happens to Europe after the fall of Rome without the unifying influence of the Church?

@unimodeler: Actually I said that.. but thats ok..

@clarient: L. Neil Smith wrote "The Crystal Empire" where the Aztecs survive.. You dont want to live there, but an ok book.

L. Neil Smith wrote a bunch of Heinlein homage books where the alt/hist was that the federalists were wiped out, the Whiskey Rebellion won, and everybody walked around with guns on their hip, drugs are legal, and apes are sentient, fully entitled citizens as are dolphins. "The Probability Broach"

What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub airplane?

Old school SNL FTW!

Vote the bottom one: No whiny Kucinich or Paul acting up in politics...