Fiat Lux

This will be the first in a fifteen-part series related to my gripes on the most common cliches I've seen in Alternate History and why they are all improbable at best, though in an infinite Multiverse I hestitate to use the word Impossible:

Starting with the most common: Nazi Germany winning World War II:

There is little way, barring two circumstances, for Hitler's Wehrmacht to win World War II on their own. The first circumstance is for the British to sue for peace in 1940. The second is for Hitler to accept Stalin's attempts to negotiate in 1941. Barring those two, the Nazi war machine will destroy itself.

First, in any scenario that presumes a war like we know, one sparked between the UK and France v. Germany, that requires Adolf Hitler to knock out the UK. He cannot do so with the resources at his disposal. The Wehrmacht lacked heavy bombers, and there was not enough time in five years to build them, especially with Hitler's ever-shifting Executive Meddling in war designes. The German navy will most likely get mauled in a Scandinavian campaign, presuming the Allies come to the obvious conclusion of taking out a major supply of German iron ore. A victory at Dunkirk might have destroyed the BEF, but that happened in the 1914 War and we know how that affected the British War Effort.

Second, Hitler will inevitably invade the Soviet Union, and he will destroy his chances to make allies of the Soviet peoples who hated Stalin's guts. Nazism was all about gathering all the German-speakers into a single Germany, and that single Germany would expand on a foundation of Slavic corpses. While no prejudice is rational, Nazi prejudice gave them no ability to treat subhuman Slavs as easy, particularly if we presume a Purge of the Red Army to strengthen the overconfidence already instilled by racism and racial indoctrination. Adolf Hitler's forces took more casualties in six months in 1941 than had already happened in the previous two years of the war. And unless he can knock the USSR out of the war, which his racism will stop him from doing so, the best the Germans can hope for is a draw, and neither the UK (for geopolitical reasons) or the USSR (for sheer survival reasons) will grant him that.

Third, the USA will likely get drawn in. If we presume that James Garner becomes President, even, Hitler will still likely sign an Anti-Comintern Pact with Imperial Japan. Japanese expansionism will still pose a threat to the USA, and I can see Hitler declaring war regardless of who the US President is. So....only Hitler would start a Second World War, and with Hitler in charge, Germany will lose. And if Von Stauffenberg or some other plotter kills him, so what? The Wehrmacht did as many atrocities as the SS did, so it's not likely that the Soviets or the West will be inclined to seek peace anyway.

Stay tuned for Part II: The Confederacy winning the US Civil War.

My take on what would happen if the Atomic Bomb didn't go off for whatever reason it did IOTL (likely a delayed start to the Manhattan Project):

First, Operation Starvation would have seen an increasingly desperate situation in Japan. Allied POWs might become scapegoats here as the IJA raises them as the reason for desperate straits. Either way, Japanese are already dying like flies before the invasion goes in. This leads to an increasing number of volunteers for Kamikaze and Bakka Bombs, because Hell, they're already starving why not take Allied forces with them?

At the same time the Soviet August Storm Operation starts rolling up Imperial Japanese forces in Mainland Asia, the result in terms of the first wave of Downfall is a bloody Anzio-on-the-Kanto. Japanese resistance is so fanatical that Allied casualties are already atrocious. For bonus shits and giggles we'll say a few OTL people of signficance die in the battle and thus certain aspects of post-war culture will be very different. The Soviets begin to gather fleets for a land invasion of Hokkaido, which takes a bit more time because this POD doesn't change the basic inadequacy of the Soviet groundwater fleet.

The American invasion steadily pushes inland, meeting fierce invasion, and purple hearts are given out by the dozen. Use of biological warfare happens, and then the first atomic bombing (because the Bomb is only delayed by a few months, not never happening) precedes US landings followed by still more atomic bombings in preparation of a US landing. The battle continues and the Soviet occupation of Hokkaido sees some revenges exacted for how the battles prior to the beginning of the War in Europe were fought, by Marshal Zhukov.

By the end of the Battle, the Ainu are completely extinct as a people between Japanese repression and scapegoating and Soviet brutality. The Japanese themselves are reduced to a tiny proportion of what they once were, and the liberal use of atomic bombings has left entire parts of the country as future death traps. Good chunks of the USA are suffering the result of biological warfare, while in the future radiation poisoning is going to have a dramatic effect on American lives. The Soviet Union occupies Hokkaido and this is the world at the end of World War II at the beginning of 1947.

The butterfly effects that are obvious are: 1) Less swift and easy victory for Israel and possibly no Israel at all due to a greater World War II and less eyes on the Soviets. Massive butterflies, including a larger number of Christians in Palestine and very likely more Jews in the Arabic-speaking countries.

2) Japan as we know it is not a US ally. Presuming the ROC still goes down to defeat (which given Sovietist views of Maoists is not entirely likely), possible locations of Nationalists on the islands of Japan are quite possible indeed.

3) The Mushroom cloud lingers much heavier in US national consciousness due to the rate of radiation poisoning in American soldiers (which was actually the plan, at the time of the design of nuclear weapons none of the lingering effects of fission bombs were known).

4) A very different Cold War. The Soviets might well have a part of Tokyo, which gives the West its own Berlin to squeeze the balls of the Soviets like Berlin squeezed the balls of the West. The possiblity of no PRC has radically different effects on the shape of de-colonization, without a single great leading movement as such. Alt-McCarthyism will take a very different form.

5) Korea is a single nation, under a Soviet stooge, who may or may not be Kim Il-Sung.

6) World War II lasting longer would itself change the post-war landscape to a degree, the 1948 elections that saw men like Nixon, JFK, and LBJ get elected will, if those men survive Downfall, not see them elected as soon as OTL.

7) Post-War politics will also differ as the potential fate of Japanese in Hawaii and the Mainland USA might have some impact on Post-War Japanese demographics, which if even a smaller number exit would see Native Hawaiians as a greater voice in Hawaiian affairs.

8) A radically different popular culture Post-War. Imagine, for just a brief moment, popular culture without the influence of anime, Godzilla (who has been influential to a degree), the influence of manga and other Japanese ideas.

9) I likely would not be here, but my aunt would still be living as she was born in World War II itself, which would be the minor and more personal effect. Effectively my father is never born if my grandfather dies in Operation Downfall, and if he is born, it's later, which has likely an impact of its own. I likely owe my very existence to Fat Man and Little Boy.

And last but not least..10) Japanese culture and Nihonjin are extinct. While Japanese would still be spoken, it would likely not receive the official sanction of the government, it would be at the most benevolent scenario like Bai in the PRC, and at the least benevolent like Breton in France.

So...yeah. Happy thoughts, eh?

I've been wanting to write a novel about the Eastern Front, and another Nazi-related alternate history novel. The first novel is set about the time of Operation Bagration and concerns the mammoth Soviet offensive of that time and ends with the discovery of the concentration camps. The kicker is that one of the Soviet commissars that discovers it (a fictional commissar) participates in the Katyn massacre in the prologue. That novel is intended as delving into the evil men do and as a comparison of the two most loathsome regimes in European history. It would also cover both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army's participation in WWII atrocities.

The other novel concerns Hitler v. Bin Laden. Yes, you read that right. Islam is by nature an egalitarian religion, while the Fuhrerprinzip of the Nazis is basically a contradiction to that in a pure form that it wasn't to Christianity. While Christianity wouldn't be capable of effective resistance against Nazism, Islam rather lacks the current Christian willingness to take a stand for what's right. The plot concerns the National Socialists against an Islamist terror movement and is both an allegory of the War on Terror and an exploration of what evil is, and how to define darkness and whether or not ideologies can truly be called evil in the end.

Any comments on the potential shitstorms or otherwise that both novels could create?

I've come up a twist on the DCU and a twist on the Marvel Universe.

The first thing for the DC Universe is that Batman becomes the model of heroes, as opposed to Superman. This creates a darker-edged feel to the universe, and Raven's arrival in 1980 in Metropolis causes her to meet up with a Kryptonian named Clark Kent. He discusses with her some issues about heroism, and the two decide to team up to kick the crap out of Trigon, followed by becoming Superman and Supergirl. This, rather than the Mainstream DCverse's idea of a war between the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor helps spark a massive interdimensional war when this version of the DCU attracts the attention of a Kryptonian version of the Draka, of S. M. Stirling fame.

As for the Marvel Universe, this deals with the question of "What if Satana rejects Satan's teachings...but Damien Hellstrom keeps them?" Satana comes to the Marvel Universe in 1982, upon the death of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary, CPSU. She gathers a group called the Young Avengers and they end up getting drawn into a series of adventures against an alternate version of the Mandarin, the High Evolutionary, the Acolytes and Magneto, and ultimately are drawn into dangerous games with another character who is part of my interconnected multiverse, Ravcel Kerigstophros of the Greater Bizjarran Empire, prior to her Shades of Grey adventure.