I will attempt to address some of the criticism of this timeline and to clarify why things developed with this TL as they did.
The writing of this timeline was shaped by different processes. Initially, the timeline was not very extensively planned out. This is reflected in the first part of the timeline, which covers the entire first postwar generation, but is sparse in terms of content compared to later sections. Unfortunately this may have given the impression that US efforts to fully annex the former CSA, as well as Canada, went far more smoothly than it actually did.
The 1960s were updated in a fragmented fashion. The timeline was not really planned out in any kind of systemic way until I started writing by decade instead of by year.
Even more recently, there were still aspects of this timeline that weren’t explained in any significant detail until I started to receive larger numbers of questions on different subjects from TTL.
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I was not trying to write an “end of history” or utopian timeline. The TL-191 series is pretty removed from any kind of utopia. However, the 2000s was the first part of this timeline since the section on the first post-SGW generation that didn’t have a major war, while also mirroring a little too closely the economic environment from the early 21st Century from our world.
Some of the discussions about this timeline have focused on aspects of TTL from past the 2009 ending point of the timeline, and what I imagined happening is not utopian at all, such as the Ottoman Dissolution, the Pakistan Dissolution, the Japanese Spring and the rise of the Ecological Union in the 2010s, a more widespread analogue to the Great Recession from OTL in the 2020s, a bad political crisis in the United States during the 2020s, and a pandemic that begins in the early 2050s.
I didn’t imagine the TL-191 series as a complete dystopia, compared to the settings of some of Harry Turtledove’s other works, but I didn’t imagine the series as a utopia either. As work progressed on the timeline, I think that I was trying to portray a world that wasn’t better compared to our world, but was different in terms of its international diplomacy, as well as its political and cultural developments.
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If I was writing this timeline from the beginning, there would be a number of things that I would do differently.
The first generation after the end of the Second Great War was not written in significant detail.
A properly written first two sections, for 1944-1949 and 1950-1959, would provide a better summary of developments and subjects such as the transformation of the US government and military under the Dewey and Truman administrations, the anti-US insurgency in the former CSA, the political process that ultimately ended the conflict in Occupied Canada, the establishment of a US-German anti-proliferation alliance, great power competition between the United States and the Japanese Empire, and between the Austro-Hungarian/German led European Community and the Russian Empire, the foundation of the Independence Movement, the independence and immediate postwar developments in Bharat, and postwar political, social, economic and cultural developments in as many nations as possible.
The independence of Bharat after the end of the Second Great War was not well thought out. For instance, Hyderabad should not have remained an independent nation for as long as it did in TTL.
A properly written first generation post-SGW section would also help to set up later developments in the timeline such as the Second Russian Civil War, the collapse of the postwar US-German anti-proliferation alliance, the conflict between the USA and the Japanese Empire in the late 1960s, and the eventual fragmentation of the Independence Movement.
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The trajectory of the Japanese Empire in TTL, which ultimately ended in the Fourth Pacific War, would probably be different in a rewritten version of the timeline. This timeline was written with the assumption that the United States somehow succeeded in preventing the Japanese Empire from successfully testing a superbomb and building an atomic arsenal, along with decisions made by the Japanese Empire not to pursue a military nuclear program after the devastating end of the Second Great War, but I now think that this was a mistaken assumption on my part.
However, any version of the Fourth Pacific War in the late 1960s, involving both sides possessing superbombs, and the Japanese Empire still being led by Ishii Yamada, would be more horrific compared to the version of this war that was featured in the timeline.
A version of the timeline in which the Japanese Empire remains a rival to the United States without a major war breaking out between the two nations would lead to significant differences compared to what was included in TTL. Both nations would probably remain enemies during the 20th and 21st Centuries, though without the ideological differences that defined the Cold War between the USA and USSR in our world. The Japanese Empire would ultimately face internal challenges from different nationalist movements, to say nothing of trying to maintain a continuing war in China. The Japanese Empire would also probably remain enemies with Russia, as well as Bharat.
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The post-Fourth Pacific War trajectory of Japan is inarguably dystopian, and it’s likely not the most plausible of choices. The syndicalist regime was inspired from the timeline Fight and Be Right, which featured a version of the British Empire that fell to a syndicalist revolution, along with the oppressive and corrupt bureaucratic society from the film Brazil. The Ecological Union was inspired by the future anti-science and anti-intellectual dystopia from the film Interstellar.
I accept that there were probably far more plausible outcomes for Japan in TTL than was actually featured. However, the genre of alternate history, including the stories of Harry Turtledove, do feature alternate outcomes for different nations that can be dystopian to the point of horror, as evidenced by the fate of the United States in stories such as Guns of the South, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Curious Notions, The Valley-Westside War, The Disunited States of America, and Joe Steele. I think that if the fate of Japan in this timeline is really analogous to anything, it’s to the dystopian fates of other nations that exist in other alternate history settings, instead of any existing nation or society from our world.
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The diplomatic relationship between the Russian Republic and the United States after the end of the Fourth Pacific War was not necessarily that realistic. I now think that it’s more plausible that there would have been a diplomatic split between the two nations after the nationalist right takes power in Russia from the Socialists. The post-Fourth Pacific War rivalry between Russia and China would also play a role in a US-Russia diplomatic split, as well as Russian efforts to forge closer military and diplomatic ties with Bharat. Russia, in TTL, could ultimately become an unfriendly diplomatic and military rival to both the German Empire and the United States, while establishing its own alliance system.
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Texas probably should have rejoined the Union sooner than it did in the timeline. I believe that Turtledove said that Texas would not remain independent permanently.
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The timeline did not pay enough attention to certain regions of the world, including Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia, especially on the emergence and development of different anti-colonial movements, the competition for influence and resources by the great powers, or the different ways that the colonial empires attempted to exercise power after the end of the Second Great War.
More broadly, this timeline ignored or glossed over subjects in different parts of the world such as political elections and economic developments. Not enough thought was given to just how different the post-SGW would ultimately be by the 21st Century compared to our world. For example, I think that the world would have been much more economically protectionist compared to OTL, with the great powers trying to secure their own industries and resources at the expense of foreign rivals.
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To echo with what Lochnessmoonster and AK47Productions wrote above, this timeline did reflect the wider time in which it was written. A version of TTL written from the beginning in the 2020s of our world would probably have emphasized different themes and outcomes compared to how this timeline was originally written.