Blue Skies in Camelot (Continued): An Alternate 80s and Beyond

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PRM

LordYam said:
My idea was that she was born in France; her father is from Algeria and her mother is French. Although come to think of it the character of Bradamante is a warrior woman who falls in love with a Muslim knight. That could be an interesting angle to explore instead.
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Oh yeah definitely and I like that idea. Maybe it could be part main story and part short story.
 

Nivek

President_Lincoln said:
All of these and more would eventually be released on Nintendo’s “Advanced Video System”, a redesign of the company’s earlier “Famicom” console, set to be released on the North American market, distributed by Atari, Inc. Though originally plans were made for an advanced 16-bit console that was really more of a home computer-hybrid, these were later scrapped. Nintendo management feared that the keyboard and other accessories would “overwhelm” non-technophiles and “frighten off” the emerging market of “casual” video game fans.
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If the 5200 is not a failure, Atari have zero Need for the famicom, OTL Nintendo was offering it in the CES and Kassar, desesperated after 5200 failure was the one to give it a preliminary offer..that become a disaster as the atari engineers were desperate to push their hardware(what would become the 7800) and stalling the deal, Kassar being fired killed the deal
 
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President_Lincoln

President_Lincoln

aksolute said:
I say that the OTL hardliner coup doesn't happen because he's more savvy with the KGB than in OTL. Remove that, and the otl style collapse is butterflied.

He holds a referendum for each republic to choose whether to stay or leave.

The Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia leave. The rest stay, and the USSR transforms into a resource-export economy, for the short term when native capitalistic industry finds its feet.

I think there would be a 'Parade of Republics' in the 90s where places like Chechnya, Dagestan, Yakutia and Buryatia all become full fledged SSRs.

Democracy, with multiple parties can only come in the 2000s after one byzantine system is replaced with another and people are satisfied with things.
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I like these ideas a lot as well. When deciding what to have happen in TTL, I try to strike a balance between historical determinism and wide-eyed idealism, realism, so to speak. Too much of the former and you have a (in my opinion) fairly boring timeline where only the window dressing changes from OTL. Too much of the latter, however, and you end up in ASB territory, where you hand waive problems and say things work out of sheer rule of cool. I do believe that the collapse of the USSR was a disaster not just for Russia, but for much of the world in the sense that it created instability and the conditions which allowed for the rise of a revanchist Russia (that's all I'll say about that to avoid current politics).

Even if Gorbachev can't fix everything (which, let's face it, would be impossible), if he can manage the transition of the USSR into the Union State, with increased openness and desperately needed economic reform, then that will be a more hopeful outcome in my view. Perhaps he can prevent the takeover of Russia's economy by the oligarchs and make a somewhat more equitable society.

LordYam said:
I had an idea for a fictional series in this world, but I was hoping that some others might be able to help flesh it out into something more concrete.

1.) Epic/Gritty Epic Fantasy: The writer is French citizen of Algerian and French heritage, and the series itself is modelled on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_of_France
More specifically, the World itself is inspired from that time (Charlemagne's conquests would be a major source of inspiration, and the powers would be modelled on Europe during Charlemagne's time. For instance, there are expies of the Carolingians, the Byzantines, the Caliphates are combined into a single power, the First Bulgarian Empire, even the Vikings.) There's references to the Ravennan Empire in the past, with the ultimate antagonist being a fallen angel trying to manipulate both the Caliphate Expy and Carolingan France expy into a destructive war.

In many ways it's similar to Game of Thrones, and ultimately becomes popular not just in France, but in America and the UK. Funnily enough, there are people on both the left and right who dislike it (The right hates the message of racial and religious tolerance, while the left thinks that Charlemagne's atrocities were somewhat whitewashed.)
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This sounds awesome. I am totally here for it.
 

Nishimura89

President_Lincoln said:
I like these ideas a lot as well. When deciding what to have happen in TTL, I try to strike a balance between historical determinism and wide-eyed idealism, realism, so to speak. Too much of the former and you have a (in my opinion) fairly boring timeline where only the window dressing changes from OTL. Too much of the latter, however, and you end up in ASB territory, where you hand waive problems and say things work out of sheer rule of cool. I do believe that the collapse of the USSR was a disaster not just for Russia, but for much of the world in the sense that it created instability and the conditions which allowed for the rise of a revanchist Russia (that's all I'll say about that to avoid current politics).

Even if Gorbachev can't fix everything (which, let's face it, would be impossible), if he can manage the transition of the USSR into the Union State, with increased openness and desperately needed economic reform, then that will be a more hopeful outcome in my view. Perhaps he can prevent the takeover of Russia's economy by the oligarchs and make a somewhat more equitable society.
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I fully agree with you, sir. A fine balance is needed. Despite my own skepticism of the USSR's chance of survival, I wish Gorbachev all the good luck and best wishes in his attempt to reform the Soviet Union, given how incredibly difficult it is.

Judging from what you stated, Mr. President, it seems the more likely scenario in this timeline is that once Gorbachev took power and, against all odds, managed to reform the USSR, a cautious detente would ensue between the West and the East. My guess is that a series of several international summits would take place throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, originally intended to discuss arms control but later on became heavily focused on normalizing East-West tensions and allowing the United States and quickly-liberalizing Soviet Union to work jointly as global leaders. This would culminate in a summit, in which representatives from both global superpowers would declare a total reset of their diplomatic relations and an official end to the Cold War.
 
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