Story Idea Thread: post your ideas here!

[lordroel]

When i watched this add i wonder, how could a British Civil War TL look like.

[James G]

Jun 8, 2019 15:49:58 GMT lordroel said:

When i watched this add i wonder, how could a British Civil War TL look like.

Well... that was certainly something I wasn't expecting.
It puts an important perspective on things.

[lordroel]

Jun 8, 2019 15:54:26 GMT James G said:

Jun 8, 2019 15:49:58 GMT lordroel said:

When i watched this add i wonder, how could a British Civil War TL look like.

Well... that was certainly something I wasn't expecting.
It puts an important perspective on things.

Surprised you never saw this add before.

[Zyobot]

Jun 8, 2019 15:49:58 GMT lordroel said:

When i watched this add i wonder, how could a British Civil War TL look like.

...Damn. That escalated midway into the video. And barely any dialogue needed to get the message across.

But yeah, a British Civil War TL would be intriguing to read, though never one to actually live through. I wonder what might trigger it (i.e. a far worse Brexit dispute) and what factions would emerge in the conflict. And who would the international community support, i.e. (at least historically) staunch allies like the United States?

[forcon]

I've always thought a fascist party emerging in the 80s after a British defeat in the Falklands could work, with sitting MPs defecting and then the party winning larger and larger shares of the vote. Alternatively, you could have a nuclear terrorist attack leading to the sitting government (regardless of party) declaring martial law due to the total chaos and possible destruction of the established form of government, with that resulting eventually in mass protests and then the Army's loyalties splitting as troops are ordered to fire on civilians.

[stevep]

Jun 8, 2019 15:44:21 GMT James G said:

Summer of terror

In May 1984, Tony Benn's Labour Gov has been elected over Thatcher's delated Conservatives. There was no Falklands, Benn won the party leadership and the country has suffered recession under Thatcher. As Labour grew in the polls, many self-declared patriots worry that the country will go full-on communist under Benn. They fail in attempts to stop him from getting into Downing Street using political means and smears.
Instead, they work with the CIA who has arranged for an Operation Gladio style resistance to be set up in the UK not to face the Soviets but instead to fight Benn's 'communists'. Some level of cooperation has taken place with various parts of the UK security services to hide and support this as well.
The terrorists deem themselves 'Auxiliary Units', taking the name from the 1940-44 units set up to oppose any German occupation. These modern ones act as cells starting through June and into the summer. They commit acts of violent terror against the Government and selected elements of the state. They want the government to fall in an era of destabilisation: their actions are combined with American activities and also domestic political events.
Benn does cave in and returns the fight.

Where this would go afterwards, I am not sure.

  That has the potential for being even more disastrous than OTL 1980's, both in the short and the longer term.  Always thought that if Thatcherism failed rather than the country being split into even more extremes your likely to see a resurgence of the middle ground with more people voting for the alliance to keep more extreme groups out.  Unfortunately that didn't happen OTL but given a Bennite Labour party and a Tory party going further to the right I bloody well hope you would see such a reaction.

[Zyobot]

For a Star Wars TL idea that no one (at least to my knowledge) seems to have really done before, Darth Vader seeks to overthrow his master and claim the mantle of Galactic Emperor for himself. Though initially at a loss for suitable apprentices to help him pull this off, the Force reintroduces him to an intimately familiar face to turn to the Dark Side. This individual is a young man, one who became a valiant and handsome Jedi Knight who went by the moniker of 'The Hero With No Fear' during the galaxy-ravaging Clone Wars two decades before. The figure's name: Anakin Skywalker--smack out of the Prequel Trilogy from before Palpatine seduced him.

Essentially, it's Vader attempting to recruit and train the younger, long forgotten version of himself; bringing him from "merely" hanging out by the darkness to actively submerging himself in it and never getting out.

[Zyobot]

Since I'm still invested in it and no one's replied to this thread for a few days, here's another TL idea I've come up with. The idea is that during the Clone Wars, some Republic forces find their way into the Milky Way Galaxy and stumble across a blue-green world teeming with life and (comparatively) primitive civilization--a.k.a., Earth. While this newly discovered planet would know of Star Wars, only the Original Trilogy would exist. Whether this would take place either before G. Lucas & Co. started working on the subsequent movies and other material (i.e. the 1980s) or in a 21st Century in which they just don't come to be at all remains undecided thus far. I would, however, like for the involved factions to eventually realize that this "Galactic Republic" exists in the same universe depicted in the Star Wars movies, albeit decades before then. Naturally, the investigation as to how the Galactic Empire and such came to be would sully a certain Supreme Chancellor's grand designs--and throw the fate of the Galaxy off-course forever.

To actually give TTL a name to go by, maybe I'll call it 'To A One-Trilogy World'; the title sounds fitting to me, at least.

[lordroel]

Jun 15, 2019 18:13:59 GMT Zyobot said:

To actually give TTL a name to go by, maybe I'll call it 'To A One-Trilogy World'; the title sounds fitting to me, at least.

That is a nice name for a TL.

[forcon]

Anybody know seen the music video for Wake Me Up When September Ends? Based on that and the whole albums Iraq War themes, I want to write an off-shoot of Holiday in Tehran focusing on a coming-of-age tale of two Army recruits whose basic training gets exelerated due to the war and who end up in combat about mid-way through.

[Zyobot]

Jun 15, 2019 18:18:03 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 15, 2019 18:13:59 GMT Zyobot said:

To actually give TTL a name to go by, maybe I'll call it 'To A One-Trilogy World'; the title sounds fitting to me, at least.

That is a nice name for a TL.

Thank you. I wonder how George Lucas & Co. will respond to eventually learning that the world-famous fictional universe they devised is real and that this newly contacted "Galactic Republic" exists in it, albeit in a time period that precedes the Empire's reign and Luke Skywalker's misadventures. Certainly, he'll have boatloads of learning and surprises in store since he and his crew haven't fleshed out this era yet.

[redrobin65]

I have a few more ideas...

Newfoundland says no: if the July 1948 referendum had the "responsible government" side win.

A series of Russian ISOTs to 1915, 1941, and 1956.

[Zyobot]

To share an idea I've come up with over the past few days, I'm thinking about starting a self-insert TL, in which either I (or a protagonist based on me) wake up in the world of Minecraft. Like any player, I'd have to gather resources, craft goods and build stuff, while also finding my way back to the real world along the way. I might also take liberties with the game by adding stuff that doesn't yet exist in the vanilla version, i.e. industrial/post-industrial technologies like engines and computers.

It's also possible that I might do other similar self-insert TLs as well, into Space Engineers or World of Warcraft for example.

[Zyobot]

To share yet another Star Wars TL idea, I call this next one ‘Without the Chess Master’. Essentially, it explores the consequences of Chancellor Palpatine being discovered and deposed much earlier (i.e. in the middle of the Clone Wars, perhaps). However, instead of the happy ending that one would intuitively expect from the orchestrator of a Galaxy-wide war being toppled from his throne, chaos breaks out as the general public’s trust in their government totally shatters. If a Force-damned Sith Lord could get the Republic to grant him practically dictatorial powers while planning to transform it into a totalitarian empire, why should they have anything to do with their government?! Bloody riots and martial law on hyper-populated worlds like Coruscant, explosive tensions between federal authorities and irate member worlds and star systems, and outright mass-defection to the CIS—who predictably uses this as damning proof that the Separatists have been right all along—would wind up commonplace in a Galaxy about to endure a civil war within the Republic itself. There won’t be an Order 66-style Jedi Purge, nor an Iron-fisted Galactic Empire with a Dark Lord of the Sith at the helm ITTL. But there will be a much longer, far more factionalized, and most definitely bloodier Clone Wars.

[lordroel]

Jun 29, 2019 20:47:04 GMT Zyobot said:

To share yet another Star Wars TL idea, I call this next one ‘Without the Chess Master’. Essentially, it explores the consequences of Chancellor Palpatine being discovered and deposed much earlier (i.e. in the middle of the Clone Wars, perhaps). However, instead of the happy ending that one would intuitively expect from the orchestrator of a Galaxy-wide war being toppled from his throne, chaos breaks out as the general public’s trust in their government totally shatters. If a Force-damned Sith Lord could get the Republic to grant him practically dictatorial powers while planning to transform it into a totalitarian empire, why should they have anything to do with their government?! Bloody riots and martial law on hyper-populated worlds like Coruscant, explosive tensions between federal authorities and irate member worlds and star systems, and outright mass-defection to the CIS—who predictably uses this as damning proof that the Separatists have been right all along—would wind up commonplace in a Galaxy about to endure a civil war within the Republic itself. There won’t be an Order 66-style Jedi Purge, nor an Iron-fisted Galactic Empire with a Dark Lord of the Sith at the helm ITTL. But there will be a much longer, far more factionalized, and most definitely bloodier Clone Wars.

This would only help the CIS i think.