Intriguing maps that reveal alternate histories | Hacker News Reader

Intriguing maps that reveal alternate histories

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71 pointschwolfe23 comments

There are games devoted to this, best known is probably Europa Universalis IV [1] and the corresponding reddit [2] often shows maps in alternate histories, aptly named "map porn".

There are challenging achievements in the game, such as:

- Become the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as Spain.

- As Byzantium, restore the old borders (i.e., stop and reverse the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century)

- As France, own Vienna, Berlin and Moscow.

You can picture the maps that this produces. Also, it's a great way to learn about history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Universalis_IV

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/

Due to my son's love of Stellaris I became quite acquainted with Paradox's games, to the extent of attending three PDXCons so far. My absolute favourite is Crusader Kings (both II and the recent III), because they are much more personal -- you're leading a dynasty by playing their current leading lord/lady, and their descendants, rather than a vague nation state.

> Become the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire as Spain.

This one actually happened under Charles V (Charles I of Spain).

To be fair, he was Flemish so he was already half way there.

He was also a Hapsburg, so he was already half way there on both sides of the family since they were both the same side to start with.

So there is a fairly big and active community about Alternatice histories. AlternateHistory.com is by far the biggest and there are active youtube channels

One of the biggest you tubers recently got outed following a white supremiscit rant - and that is one of the bigger "smells" around the community - histories of "what if the Nazis won and what if the South won US civil war" can spring not from curiosity but yearning.

I personally enjoy WhatIfAltHist as a channel, partly because he is fairly front and centre about his own political (rather centrist and boring) (small p) views.

The big takeaway I have found is that I learn something interesting about our real timeline history and about our real geopolitics - how England supported the creation of Portugal through the middle ages, or the extent Tamerlane changed Europe by killing everyone. And just how contingent the world is.

So yeah it's a fascinating area, tread carefully, I have only dipped my toes in, but it can be very eye opening.

I'd be more interesting in alternate histories where, for example, western Europe never rose to power (it was pretty much a backwater during the Roman age and only crept forward slowly during the Middle Ages; it was colonialism that made it insanely rich and influential).

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson may fit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt

> The Years of Rice and Salt is an alternate history novel by American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 2002. The novel explores how world history might have been different if the Black Death plague had killed 99% of Europe's population, instead of a third as it did in reality. Divided into ten parts, the story spans hundreds of years, from the army of the Muslim conqueror Timur to the 21st century, with Europe being re-populated by Muslim pioneers, the indigenous peoples of the Americas forming a league to resist Chinese and Muslim invaders, and a 67-year-long world war being fought primarily between Muslim states and the Chinese and their allies. While the ten parts take place in different times and places, they are connected by a group of characters that are reincarnated into each time but are identified to the reader by the first letter of their name being consistent in each life.

> The novel explores themes of history, religion, and social movements. The historical narrative is guided more by social history than political or military history. Critics found the book to be rich in detail, realistic, and thoughtful. The Years of Rice and Salt won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2003. In the same year it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, a Hugo Award, and a British Science Fiction Award.

Yep great book quite an interesting read it was.

The article in OP has a link to such a map too.

"just how contingent the world is"

I must admit I have a morbid fascination with alternate histories of the Cold War and all the terrible things that almost happened in that period but for the good judgement of people on both sides of that conflict. We were so close on so many occasions to utter oblivion...

[NB I'm in the UK - which would, like most of Europe, come out rather badly had the nukes started flying].

You might appreciate the seminal amateur work on that subject, 1983: Doomsday

https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/1983:_Doomsday

It's one of the most massive collaborative world-building projects of its kind.

If by "appreciate" you mean "work out how quickly I die in that scenario" then yes :-)

[26th September 1983 was not long after my 18th birthday and a few days before I started a course at a university in the centre of Edinburgh].

Alternate history fosters systemic thinking to understand outcomes and consider how they could have been altered to create other realities. In doing so, it teaches amateur history, sociology, economics, and other subjects through the reverse-engineering of historical events, to different extents of rigor. Along the way you definitely spot interesting overlooked patterns, such as the long-lived ancient Anglo-Portuguese alliance.

It's also the basis for a lot of creative works. DeviantArt not only plays host to a ton of alternate historical maps, but flags and other graphics.

Shame the images are too low resolution to read well.

Slightly better:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sobel_North_America.... (457 × 429 pixels)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Man_In_The_High_Cast... (Max 1,428 × 638 pixels)

If you like alternate maps, perhaps you will enjoy alternate weather reports:

https://hypotheticalhurricanes.fandom.com/wiki/Typhoon_Hagup...

I thought this was going to be about Tartaria :)

I was going to riot if Long Chile was not included.

On maps, I find it surprising and hilarious that the UN has a flat earth map on its logo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Nations

Could you explain why you find it so funny? Are you proposing their flag should be spherical instead of a flat sheet?

I think GP means that the projection used appears to be an Azimuthal equidistant projection [0] - which doesn't really make it a 'flat Earth map' as such, but if the Earth were flat I suppose it would be the only logical (non) projection.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuthal_equidistant_projecti...

Is there a schism in the Flat Earth community about which pole is a point and which is a circle?

Well presumably there's no accepted concept of a 'pole'. (If there were, yes I'm sure the Antarctican Flat Earth community is adamant it is the inverse of the above link..!)

But, generalising, 'where is the centre', I don't know.

Back in the day they presumably didn't claim to know, because obviously nobody had reached the edge, so there was just known area, and unknown beyond it, in every direction.

The Charlie Stross story "Missile Gap" has a literal flat Earth and just that "and unknown beyond it, in every direction"... The 'Earth' there definitely doesn't have poles.

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