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Wednesday 28 May 2014

What If: The Axis won World War Two? Part 1

With Wolfenstein: The New Order out I thought I would do my own spin on the subject. However if the Axis were to win the war realistically multiple things would have to have occurred differently to out timeline. In May 1940 the Nazis Blitzkrieg tactics had overwhelmed France and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to send the RAF, (Royal Air Force), to help the beleaguered French. In our timeline the RAF leader Hugh Dowding refused to send spitfires knowing rightly that the French were done for but in this alternate one Dowding buckles and sends planes to help the French but most of the planes are lost. The Battle of Britain relied on the British not sending planes to France so with most of the RAF destroyed in Dunkirk and Normandy the Luftwaffe win the Battle of Britain, albiet with many losses. Goering then orders the Luftwaffe to destroy the British radar. Hitler then commences Operation Sealion and the Nazis invade the Isle of Wight but for now the German invasion of Britain is halted.

In our timeline Churchill underestimated the Japanese so sent more troops to Africa than Asia but in this timeline with Hitler directly on Churchill's doorstep more troops are diverted to Europe. Indochina, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma fall in 1941 instead of 1941. Similarly with more troops diverted to Britain Rommel and the Italians sweep up in Africa and capture Suez. In 1941 Hess makes his flight to Scotland knowing about Hitler's next plan. However Heydrich will lead Barbarossa with Churchill to distracted by Goerings bombing campaigns and now German landings in Cornwall to have Czech resistance trained to assassinate their butcherer. Hitler commences Barbarossa taking Stalin off guard but this time he eliminates bureaucracy so troops are well supplied and skips attacking Stalingrad to attack Moscow and the oil fields of the Caucauses instead. With this the Soviets are pushed back. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor brining the US into the war and the Grand Alliance is formed between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.

The US do their island hopping tactic to great success and with the winning of the Battle of Midway Japan starts to be pushed back but no Mediterranean Campaign that the Allies used happens with Moscow falling by late 1944 and Britain's capital relocating to Newcastle in 1943 after London falls and Churchill is killed in an air raid destroying St Pauls Cathedral as well. The Royal family flees to Canada before appointing Clement Attlee Prime Minister. Japan strains its forces invading India and initially nationalists are pleased by this until Gandhi is murdered peacefully resisting occupation starting the Indian War of Independence lasting until 1947. Nationalist China then falls but the Japanese cannot defeat Mao's Communists. Spain enters the Axis annexing Gibralter while Italy inavdes Malta and Cyprus in 1945 with a joint Italian/German invasion of Iran the same year to take the oil fields after the Shah refuses to trade with the Axis after the Allies had virtually ran the nation dry.

In 1944 the 20th July Plot still takes place with many generals angry at how Hitler had failed to take Britain and the USSR with his eratic leadership and constant meddling in the army left it severly weakened over the last few years. This is especially spurred on with the Kreisau Circle leaking to them details of the Holocaust so the plotters planned to end the regime to stop the genocide. Again it fails and many are murdered such as Claus von Stauffenberg and Rommel. Hitler again uses this as an excuse to meddle more in the army.

More sinisterly the Wannsee Conference takes place but many more people die in camps. With Britain and the USSR falling this dooms millions more Jews, leftists, homosexuals and many more to the hands of the Nazis but the purges are never found out so over 20million are systematically murdered in the camps. Britain falls in December 1945 so Truman signs a peace agreement with the European Axis powers. The Manhatten Project still happens in this reality and with the US capturing Okinawa with great expense of life two atom bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With war weariness from India and the Americans and months of bombing of cities from the Americans Japan signs a peace deal. They declare war on the USSR in March 1946 losing few soldiers to revitalise moral as by this time the Red Army had collapsed and they succeed in taking Sakhalin.

Thanks for reading and please comment. I will be doing a follow up showing the world after the April Agreement ending World War Two and the start of an alternate Cold War. Hope you enjoyed.

Sunday 25 May 2014

What If: The Godzilla movies actually happened?

With the new Godzilla movie out now and being a big fan of the King of the Kaiju myself I've decided to see what would our planet be like if Godzilla and his friends and foes actually existed. (Note: I'm not delving into how they actually could exist as the surface area to volume ratio of a kaiju meant that one could not physical exist nevermind the atomic breath).

Let's start with the first film from 1954. Godzilla would rise from the sea and lay waste to Tokyo before being destroyed by Dr Serizawa's Oxygen Destroyer after the military had failed to destroy him. The aftermath would be devastating: the Japanese economy destroyed, millions dead and many more irridated from the monster's radiation to die in agony. Godzilla's radiation would wipe out all the fishing industry on the East coast causing a mass famine. More religious people would see Godzilla as retribution for Japan's actions in World War 2, (a little GMK reference for those who has seen the film). The US and UN would have to send aid to Japan to reduce the famine while mass unrest would generate from the lack of action against the monster. With Tokyo destroyed and radioactive the capital would have to be moved to Osaka.

Cut to Godzilla Raids Again a year later. Mass panic ensues as everyone on the beach rushes inland. However Godzilla is joined by Anguirus and all hope is lost. The two monster's battle in Osaka leaves the city to waste before Anguirus bleeds out and Godzilla is frozen in ice. Now everyone is worried with three kaiju created by nuclear energy which sends anti-nuclear protests throughout the world and ends the Cold War with the USA and USSR preparing for another kaiju attack. With all of Toho's monsters living in the same world Japan would then be relentlessly attacked by the likes of Rodan, Mothra and Varan. When Godzilla resurfaces in 1962 almost all of Japan has been destroyed by monsters so instead of publicity King Kong is brought as a weapon to fight Godzilla instead.

Throughout the sixties and seventies with the aliens using monsters like Ghidrah and Gigan to destroy the cities it is not Japan being attacked. With the little amounts of people there the aliens have no reason to attack Japan so instead target other Pacific cities like Beijing, San Francisco and Seoul. The world economy crashes as everything is thrown at saving civilisation and after the battle with Mechagodzilla the Mecha programme is founded based on Jet Jaguar's and Mechagodzilla's tech.

After the last battle with Mechagodzilla Godzilla does not resurface until the 1980s. Now the global economy has rebuilt but Japan is wary of another kaiju attack. The Hesei battles destroy the cities again and the world is once more united but this time behind Mechagodzilla 2, Mothra and MOGUERA. After the battle with Desotroyah and the death of the second Godzilla his son disappears for a while. Three years later Zilla attackes New York causing a major panic as now a non-Pacific city is attacked but the US overestimate the kaiju's power and is dismissed as not being the actual Godzilla. We now come to Destroy All Monsters (remember it is set in 1999) and every major city is destroyed by the kaiju and the actual Godzilla destroys New York. The Millenium wave of attacks completely ends the world economy with the final hope of humanity being in the reactivated Atragon. With it only managing to kill Manda at the start of Final Wars and its destruction at the end means that humanity has lost. The lack of large cities means that the attacks stop but it comes with humanity becoming nomadic in certain areas and as Heisenberg rightly put it 'sent us back to the Stone Age'.

So Godzilla in reality would destory humanity while all that Gamera would acheive would be saving a few kids and having a catchy theme song. To be honest Godzilla's was better having the Blue Oyster Cult do his.

Saturday 24 May 2014

What if: The PRC never used force at Tiananmen Square?

From the 15th April to June 4th 1989 one of the major events of the Cold War in Asia took place. Students and intellectuals protested in Beijing and 300 other Chinese cities peacefully protested against the government's treatment of the deceased Hu Yaobang, political corruption, human rights abuse and nepotism from the PRC's leader Deng Xiaoping. On June 4th Type 59 tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square with one single man, 'The Tank Man', standing in their wake. The protests ultimetly ended with the highest estimated death toll at 6,000. However what would have happened if the Communist Politburo elite hadn't decided to use force?

I see two scenarios. The first is that there is a political crisis. Martial law is not enforced and the protestors gain more and more support from the Chinese populace and the USA. Possible in some of the major cities riots even break out. With more and more pro-democracy supporters gaining control there is a cabinet reshuffle and instead of the moderates like Zhao Ziyang being purged from the party the hardliners are forced to step down. Like in our timeline Jiang Zemin would be major in Chinese politics but overall the public become pro-democracy. Zemin and Ziyang would continue their reforms and like in Gorbachev's USSR freedom of speech is less repressed. However the students who organised the protest like Chai Ling would become major political activists who would still protest against the Maoist dictatorship which would be spurred on by increasing Western influence and the fall of the USSR in 1991. Around 1996 the PRC would have to hold its first non-corrupt election to which the Communist party would lose ending the PRC and possibly seeing reunification with Taiwan.

The second is much more deadly: Civil War. The country would be split into hardline Maoists and the new pro-democracy revolutionaries. Personally, (feel free to disagree), I believe the democray supporters would win with the USSR unwilling to send troops, the overall sympathy the public has to the revolutionaries after years of Communist rule and support from the USA, Japan and South Korea. Most likely in this scenario separatist movements in Tibet, Turkestan and Xinjiang would aid the democracy supporters, winning their independence after the war but Xinjiang's and Turkestan's would be challenged similarly to how Russia has challenged Ukraine's (cough cough Putin). The new democratic nation would hail Hu Yaobang and Sun Yat-sen as the heros of China but the country would be suffering from huge loss of life and economic burden from the intense civil war.

Thanks for reading and please comment about the scenario and give your opinions as well as other scenarios you want. This is my first time blogging so I will happily take any suggestions to improve.

A Bit About Me and the Blog

Hello my name is Lewis Twiby. I come from Doncaster, South Yorkshire in the UK and you can find me on twitter @lewistwiby, on steam under the name mortalkombat247 and fanfiction.net under mortalkombat247.

On this blog I aim to delve into alternate history so please leave any suggestions of an alternate history scenario that you want to see. I aim to be apolitical on this blog so not to offend anyone but a few historical figures are definitely up for criticism; mainly bloodthirsty dictators. I will also be posting movie and game reviews as well as anyother thing that springs to mind related to the sci-fi, horror and fantasy genres. I will also analyse key historical events and delve into another great love of mine: paleontology.

I hope you enjoy and please leave any comments!