Reviving the "What if" History Topics

[Crandar]

This forum used to host regular discussion topics of a specific historical subject under the labels of "Hypothetical" discussion that would ask the question "What if this key event had happened differently"

Some of the past examples were:

Could the Germans have defeated the russians in WW2? from March 2004

The Battle of Tours in 732AD from May 2004

What if the Greeks had been crushed at Thermopolae from Sept 2004

These discussions wer not just random musing like pirate vs ninjas but focuse on how some historical event might have been altered by changing a key event of a few key events.

Would you like to see more of these type discussions and if so do you have some short decription of topics you might propose for inclusion of the list of planned future Hypothetical History"What If" discussions?

[OTZ]

as long as they remain civil, by all means. seems to be a bad case of verbal diarhea going around that makes people post the first thing that comes to their minds.

[Dithyrambos]

Ok, no pirates vs ninjas... What about robot pirates vs robot ninjas?

I like the idea, as long as this doesn't turn into another East vs West fanboy topic, or something along those lines... >.>

[Justinian]

Originally posted by OTZ@Mar 30 2005, 12:46 PM
as long as they remain civil, by all means. seems to be a bad case of verbal diarhea going around that makes people post the first thing that comes to their minds.

Agreed.

A thread about what would have happened if Alexander took Italy degenerated into a "Alexander pwnz all!" vs "shut up alexander fanboy alexander suXXOrz!"

[ajimenez3]

OTZ's opinion is right on the mark. It seems that people cannot just make their opinion known and maybe make a couple of intelligent replies to shore up their opinion. It turns into a long thread of just restated over and over what was said before and then like everyone above has stated turns into a "My country is better than yours" or "My historical figure is better than yours"

It would be good to have this back if it could be civil.

Issues like How would WWII have been different if the Nazis had been able to defeat the RAF and invaded and captured England or What if Hitler had not decided to invade the Balkans and help Italy thus delaying Operation Barbarossa by a couple of months? Could the extra months of good weather have helped the Nazis capture Moscow and cuase the collapse of Stalin's govt?

I woyuld like to see people present arguments for and against things like this and be objective and not let their political idealogy get in the way of the debate.


Semper Fi

[Sidus Preclarum]

This sort of thread would be nice, provided, for exemple, that a thread on "What if France had attacked Germany on sept 1, 1939" or more generally "what if de Gaulle's "Vers l'armée de métier " had meet a huge success in 1934 and France had switched from a defensive to an offensive doctrin" wouldn't be riddled with the usual "smelly cheese-eating-surrendering-monkeys"
Like, if the thread was somehow "instutionalized" (like, some peep with mod power chose one topic for the week, and monitors the debates so that they stay civil), I think we have enought interesting people here to make it worth reading .

[Crandar]

Rest assured that those issues of thread jacking and fanboy digression can be addressed by an informed and thoughtful approach to moderation.

If anything you can see by clear example, it should be clear that I and the other members of the moderation team are reorganizing and refocusing our efforts to make sure that the disruptive influences are put to an end. Either personal choice of the participants or by externally applied selection, these topics will be preserved for the participants who choose to participate for the main purposes and not for those individuals who have just fallen off the side of the turnip truck.

[Ó Cathasaigh]

What about the old "What if Britain had fought on the side of the Confederacy" and "What America Allied with France(napoleonic era)" those were great ones to thinkabout.

[Oldman]

IMHO an alternative history is a very captivating thing... It makes the understanding of real events more deep.

[deddem]

What if Wilhelm is killed at Hastings.

[Ran Taro]

What if Hannibal occupied Rome?

[Valus]

What if the crusades never would have 'happened'?
Would Europe have fallen way behind the islamic world in terms of science and medicine?
My opinion is that it would.

[MaximiIian]

This forum used to host regular discussion topics of a specific historical subject under the labels of "Hypothetical" discussion that would ask the question "What if this key event had happened differently"

Some of the past examples were:

Could the Germans have defeated the russians in WW2? from March 2004

The Battle of Tours in 732AD from May 2004

What if the Greeks had been crushed at Thermopolae from Sept 2004

These discussions wer not just random musing like pirate vs ninjas but focuse on how some historical event might have been altered by changing a key event of a few key events.

Would you like to see more of these type discussions and if so do you have some short decription of topics you might propose for inclusion of the list of planned future Hypothetical History"What If" discussions?

I have one in the Historical Arts & Literature section if you want to read it. You seem interested in What If's...

[MareNostrum]

What if Hapsburg revives a topic dating from March 2005?
There were some issues with Crandar, and his last online activity dates from March 2005 as well.. So I dont think he will be able to read your topic

well "what if" topics can be good as long a smembers present a good debate, without flaming, spamming.. But in my opinion they often end up in getting closed because of forum violations.

But if someone wants to try..
Go ahead...