Counterfactual history

[Daumantas]

I LOVE conterfactual history! "What-if" history, in other words. I'm reading a book right now called "Almost America" by Steve Tally, in which he presents numerous counterfactual scenarios:
--What if Washington had not crossed the Delaware, but had retreated instead?
--What if the United States had not scrapped the Articles of Confederation?
--What if Samuel Tilden had been declared the winner of the 1876 election? (Think: the 2000 electoral mess in Florida.)
--What if Samuel Morse had given up on the telegraph?
--What if Meade had attacked Lee on July 4, 1863 (the day after Pickett's charge) at Gettysburg?

There are many, many more from world history as a whole. The possibilities are endless. It's impossible to know, of course -- but the speculation is tremendous fun.

 

[amk714]

It's a fascinating topic, Daumantas. For example, what would've happened if Lincoln or JFK had not been shot? If only time travel were possible. 😀

 

[Texas_Tickle]

What if we killed Saddam when we had the chance to, 12 years ago?

 

[kurchatovium]

What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?

What if Woodrow Wilson had X-ray vision?😀

 

[Texas_Tickle]

What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?

What if Woodrow Wilson had X-ray vision?😀

LOL! And what if Bill Clinton and George Bush joined them, and became super-heroes?

Of course, Monica Lewinski would always be the "damsel in distress"

 

[kurchatovium]

What if the word croissant were easier to pronounce?

What if we hid missile silos under all the Starbuck's of the world?

What if John Tesh could sing?

What if Pauly Shore was actually funny?

What if I were crazy?.....Ok that one has already come to pass.

😀

 

[Texas_Tickle]

What if the word croissant were easier to pronounce?

What if we hid missile silos under all the Starbuck's of the world?

What if John Tesh could sing?

What if Pauly Shore was actually funny?

What if I were crazy?.....Ok that one has already come to pass.

😀

What if Carrot-Top quit making all of those stupid 1800-Collect commercials?

 

[Daumantas]

OK..so, anyway, to get this back on track...

Tally posits a Battle of Gettysburg where Meade counterattacks and successfully destroys Lee's supply train. Meade also sends Birney to take the mountain passes near Williamsport, Maryland, along Lee's line of retreat. Birney finds the passes undefended (which was the case) and occupies them. With his army defeated, his supplies gone, and no possibility of retreat, Lee is forced to surrender. The Confederacy in turn surrenders in the autumn of 1863.

The main hole I found in his scenario is that he assumes Meade's attack takes Longstreet's corps by surprise. In point of fact, Lee expected a counterattack (it's what he would have done) and told his commanders to brace for it. Longstreet, no fool, would also have been expecting an attack. Furthermore, by that point in the battle, Lee had available to him Jeb Stuart's cavalry, which would have undoubtedly detected the Union forward movement. Lee might have lost, but he wouldn't have been taken by surprise.

Alex, with regard to the assassinations, one of the rules Tally set for himself was that nothing that was an "act of God" could be reversed. Thus, the bullet couldn't miss JFK, for example. Tally confined himself to events that could have been changed by individuals making decisions different from those they actually made. Of course, in speculation one is free to do what one wishes, so the rest of us can always posit how things would have been different due to timing -- like, if that car that hit Winston Churchill in New York in the 1930s had struck him harder; or if the Russian troops breaking up the attempted Bolshevik coup in St. Petersburg in July 1917 had reached the Tauride Palace a few minutes earlier, and shot Lenin?

Like I said before...endless possiblities. Each historical moment presents an infinite number of turns.

 

[Texas_Tickle]

What if.....

What if we got rid of Hitler before he was able to kill 6 million Jews?

 

[kurchatovium]

History I believe has a certain amount of inertia to it and once things are "rolling" in a certain direction I think it is difficult to alter it so drastically by changing one or two events. Sort of the ideal presented in "Asimov's Foundation Trilogy". Of course there are "keystone" figures like Hitler or Stalin that if something had happenned to them things then indeed might be very different.

 

[Limeoutsider]

What if Sony hadn't been founded?

 

[Haltickling]

What if you could travel back in time, and what if you (accidentally or intentionally) killed your great-grandfather before he could sire any children? Would you still have been born to travel back in time in order to kill your great-grandfather?

And if you would, as a result of your killing, never have been born, who would have caused your own non-existence?

Luckily, time travel isn't possible in reality, or we would create a lot of those time-paradoxons. To travel back in time, we would have to leave our spacetime-event- cone, which is only possible by travelling faster than light. Physics tells us that this isn't possible.

 

[Neutron]

You're Wrong..

An attack by Meade, whether a surprise attack or not would have beaten Lees Army for good then and there. Lee was running out of supplies, his troops were shot physically and mentally. Any decent sized attack would have destroyed what was left of Lees forces. The Union did not know of Lees supply problems, AND felt based on his spirited attacks during the previous 2 and 1/2 days that he was far stronger than he was. A decent probe with cavalry or any competent scouting force would have proven otherwise.

However beating Lee would NOT have ended the Civil War in Autumn of '63. Lee did not have the biggest, nor the best Army in the Confederacy at this point, additionally the Union had not beaten the Southern People. It took Shermans march to the sea to do that. Without beating Southern Morale, and ruining their ability to supply themselves the war could not have begun earlier.

The trouble with idiots like Tally is they assume modern communications and supply methods when they write that mindless tripe the endlessly come up with. Fact is, even without Lees Army the South was PLENTY strong. In fact at best all the Union did was keep enough people to hold Lee in Virginia and the surrounding area.
This force was not enough to make a difference in the overall course of things.

When I saw Counterfactual history Ithought it might have been something written by a Brit.


Tron

 

[asutickler]

Luckily, time travel isn't possible in reality, or we would create a lot of those time-paradoxons. To travel back in time, we would have to leave our spacetime-event- cone, which is only possible by travelling faster than light. Physics tells us that this isn't possible.

Time travel would also be a double violation of the Law of Conservation of Matter (which states that the ammount of matter in the universe is "fixed," and cannot change), as the molecular components which comprise a person or object sent back in time would also exsist in whatever era they were sent from, AND would "vanish" from the era from whence they came. 🙂

 

[nenezinho]

info about gettysburg

Quote from "Staff Officers account of the conflict"

"Suffice it that on the night of the 3rd of July the enemy withdrew his left, Ewell´s Corps, form our front, and on the morning of the 4th we again occupied the village of Gettysburg, and on that nationalt day victory was proclaimed to the country; THAT FLOODS OF RAIN ON THAT DAY PREVENTED ARMY MOVEMENTS OF ANY CONSIDERABLE MAGNITUDE, the day being passed by our army in position uppon the field"


So it seem´s it was god´s or nature´s call and not Meade wich decided that the 4th of jully should be a day of peace on U.S. lands.

This according to my source of info.
Just wished to deffend the army of the potomac cause it´s already hard to fight for your own country....the least that country can do it´s aprecciate a victory and give credit to the boy´s....even to those who lost cause they also fought bravely.

Compliments from Portugal!

 

[MadKalnod]

I'm reminded of a sequence from Alan Moore's Top Ten that brings home the subjective nature of imagining alternate histories. A character is traveling via an inter-dimensional Grand Central Station of sorts and arrives in a parallel timeline full of people in togas and fluted columns. When asked by a bored satyr at the customs desk if he has any golden fleece, strange gods, or other contaband to declare, he remarks with wonder:
"So, this must be some strange, parallel world where the Roman Empire never fell, then?"
"No," snaps the Customs satyr, "your timeline is some backwards, freak parallel where it did."

 

[kurchatovium]

Theoretically time travel is possible if one assumes that there are a infinite number of parallel universes. So if you go back in time to kill your grandfather you really end up in an alternate universe where you exist in your granfather's time but not in your own. Also only those universes where there are no logical paradoxes could be travelled to. Thus a question can we imagine a universe that does not exist or if we can imagine it does that mean it does exist?

 

[THE THREAD]

I love talking about universes and time travel and stuff. Maybe we should have another thread for this?

 

[red indian]

What you on about now Tronny???........

....."When I saw Counterfactual history Ithought it might have been something written by a Brit."....or it could be written by some Yank who thinks Vietnam was a victory for the U.S. or that the Harrier Jump jet was an American invention or that U Boats never patrolled in the north sea...

 

[Neutron]

Whoa Sparky..

I never once said U boats did not operate in the Nord Zee. What I said was after a certain date the Nord Zee wasn't a primary operational theater. Aircraft and Destoyers made it FAR too dangerous. In fact the entire Nord Zee was a No Mans land.

As for the Harrier, check your dates bud. The Harrier was in service in the USMC almost a YEAR prior to it being in the Brit Navy on thse little pissant dinghies you guys call Air Craft Carriers.

Odd every considers Vietnam a US lost when we never lost a battle, the Viet Cong casualties were 9.2 times higher than ours, AND we left the war in the hands of the South Vietnamese because we HAD the North Viets beat. Also I find it odd that as we were in the process of levelling the North Vietnamese with B 52s and Battleship Bombardments that it was the BRITS who begged us to stop because we were making the war and I quote "Too violent"


Counterfactual History is also known as Churchillianism.


Tron

 

[red indian]

While I am at it........

.......dont you think its time you got rid of your stupid sign off line? we have the vast bulk of our armed forces shoulder to shoulder with your guys, and our committment in terms of man power, equipment, and finance is proportionally much greater than the U.S. so if you have any sense of respect for our efforts on your behalf, get it shifted. Come on you mods if I put the equivalent sign off line at the end of my posts you would be on your high moral horses sending me indignant E mails pretty dam quick.

 

[Neutron]

Oh?

So you have half your operational aircraft carriers in the gulf? OH wait, you don't have any aircraft carriers.

Now so far as getting rid of my sign off. LOL Perhaps there's a mod out there who has actually read English History. That line in fact was spoken by your own Winston Churchill when it became official the USA had declared war on Germany. 🙂


Tron

 

[ShiningIce]

Its like he goes out of his way to be malicious. 😕