CN Alternate History

[Uralica]

[quote name='Dochartaigh' timestamp='1292287471' post='2538940']
Frankly, i would like to see what would have happened if the UjP won against ~. That would be the largest change i could think of that would affect the game and still have people be interested without having NPO be the center of the universe. my prediction would be a UjW 2.0 a year or so later and a much different future from now. possibly no Umbrella or remake of GOONS or \m/.
[/quote]

I can think of a couple alliances that would have been driven off the face of Bob had UJP won.

A few things, major or minor, that I ponder though... what if:

- Hayastan's coup of LUA had succeeded during the NoV-Continuum War...
- or from the other angle, had LUA not told CCC to stay out when they entered that war and were eventually forced out of the political scene completely.
- The 5-alliance coalition (CCC, TFD, Atarax, LEN, OTF) that was supposed to hit Valhalla during NoCB had actually done so.
- TOOL had rolled with Ragnarok during Karma War (We wouldn't have met the awesome allies we'd found in Brigade in that case)
- the pre-emption committee hadn't decided to roll C&G.
- Grämlins hadn't gone off the deep end during BiPolar.

[Axolotlia]

[quote name='Duncan King' timestamp='1292288486' post='2538948']
LiquidMercury not ordering a hold in the Almost War (Athens v. TPF). TPF's allies go in and bring their allies with them. The sides as lined up were pretty even (and possibly stacked against SuperComplaints) so it could have been a fun war. It would probably have also prevented or severely delayed TOP/CNG.
[/quote]

This.

Could have been a fun war

[Believland]

If TOP didn't go insane.

[Kroknia]

GUARD and IRON join GW3 on the side of AEGIS. Lets say GPA as well for the sake of possibilities.

No matter the result, that would have changed a lot of the dynamics of the future of CN. AEGIS victory, stalemate, NPO victory, it may have held off the curb stomps that have sense run the game with 2 more even long term sides.

[Duke Nukem]

TOP and Co. Crushing MK and friends. That would've been nice and we wouldnt've had to deal with MK's new hegemony

[Duncan King]

[quote name='Caliph' timestamp='1292289438' post='2538968']
GOONS, Gen[m]ay, and \m/ wouldn't have had to disband as a result of the UjW then if they had won, so of course there would be no need to remake them.[/quote]

I too would have liked to see these three alliances tough it out like Fark or FAN. After three or four months of war, I suspect you'd see the same kind of distaste for the war from the fighting alliances on both sides that happens in extended conflicts and after a couple more months, the political climate would have resembled that of when the Fark and FAN wars ending, namely the attacked alliances being seen as great warriors and the alliances keeping them in a war seen as idiots and oppressors. We also probably wouldn't be seeing GOONS and \m/ 2.0, Ragnarok, or Umbrella.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Duncan King

[Delta1212]

Picking something like "What if the other side had won the war" isn't helpful if you're trying to project forward what the consequences of the change would be for the simple reason that one side "winning" a war isn't so much an event as an outcome of various factors, some or all of which are implied to change by saying that the victory was reversed, but without providing any real detail as to what they were changed to. How someone wins and under what conditions are as if not more important than the simple statement of victory.

Choosing something like, to pick out a particularly good example from the thread, "What would have happened if TOP and friends had decided against going with the pre-emptive strike in BiPolar" would be far better simply because there are consequences that can be extrapolated from the change in that decision and there aren't any real underlying threads that need to be explained away in order to arrive at a situation where they decide not to, mainly because you can more or less just go with "They decided it was stupid and didn't do it" and have a perfectly sound premise to work from. This isn't true of UJW where you can't just say "What if UJP had won?" because there are lots and lots of reason why they lost that need to be explained in order for it even to be physically possible for that outcome to be realistic. A better choice would be "What if banned member hadn't made a particularly distasteful joke?" or "What if TPF hadn't decided to surrender prematurely?" These things may or may not make any material difference at all, but they are pivotal actions that, at the moment they happened, could have gone either way. Most events that people are focusing on were decided well before the actual event took place for other reasons, and those are what should be addressed.

[quote name='Duncan King' timestamp='1292288486' post='2538948']
LiquidMercury not ordering a hold in the Almost War (Athens v. TPF). TPF's allies go in and bring their allies with them. The sides as lined up were pretty even (and possibly stacked against SuperComplaints) so it could have been a fun war. It would probably have also prevented or severely delayed TOP/CNG.
[/quote]
The sides were a lot more even than they wound up being, but we did have enough of an edge that we most likely would have won. I can probably dig up the stats breakdowns still if you care enough and I find the time between finals to go hunting through records.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Delta1212

[AirMe]

Change history you say? That's an easy one. I would have given the order to launch nukes in GW2. The game would have been a free for all after that carnage.

[Hyperbad]

[b]NAAC & NPO fighting the first polar war to a draw[/b]

Clift notes version:
I think a lot of what helped the NPO grow after those first few months and keep their edge was having soundly defeated other opponents and only seeing modest defeat in Great War 1. Had NPO not won its first war things could have turned out differently. At the time stats wise NAAC was the second strongest alliance (IIRC) but started to slowly slip away after a series of defeats. Its loss in that first war also prevented it from entering the Citrus War. Whether it would have is probably not. The cause for war at that time was more or less reasonable to the leaders on Bob and with a stalemate in that first war the rivalry might not have reached the heights it historically did.

On the other hand, a lot of the fear in that first year was from the NPO having won those first few wars so decisively and that in part is why some seemed to rally against the NPO for the threat they seemed to pose. Fighting that war to a stalemate could have slowed or the general impression of the NPO being such a threat from forming in peoples minds thereby preventing any coalition from building against them and ensuring that the Citrus War never occurred.

I have no idea who would have gained dominance if the First Polar War was a stalemate and the Citrus War either never happened or turned out with more players or a different result.

/me awaits welcomed historical corrections



[b]Invasion alliances never form[/b]
???

Edited December 14, 2010 by Hyperbad

[Believland]

I actually change mine to:
FOK gets into Citadel
The Hangout is formed
Gayroller is the chosen name
Ramirus was expelled/denied from Gre
TOP and MK get a MDP.

[AirMe]

[quote name='Believland' timestamp='1292291186' post='2538994']
I actually change mine to:
FOK gets into Citadel
The Hangout is formed
Gayroller is the chosen name
Ramirus was expelled/denied from Gre
TOP and MK get a MDP.
[/quote]

There was a point in MK's history where we would have welcomed an invite to Citadel.

[Geoffron X]

[quote name='Banksy' timestamp='1292287963' post='2538944']
NPO winning Karma isn't a good example, because they simply couldn't have with the numbers.

Something like Legion/ODN joining GW2 is a more fair example (and rather tired too). Maybe nothing would have happened, but it could have altered the war.
[/quote]
MHA and Citadel follow their treaty commitments with Continuum alliances. Bam, NPO victory. Woulda been that easy.

[Duncan King]

[quote name='Delta1212' timestamp='1292290419' post='2538986']
The sides were a lot more even than they wound up being, but we did have enough of an edge that we most likely would have won. I can probably dig up the stats breakdowns still if you care enough and I find the time between finals to go hunting through records.
[/quote]
I'd be interested in seeing it but there's no reason to sabotage your finals.

I know that my alliance and our allies were pretty upset about the war and cared a lot more about that situation than we did about TOP-CNG. Once TOP walked into that trap and preempted, we knew we were going down in flames. The Almost War would have been more even and we would have felt better about entering because an alliance we actually liked was being attacked (we didn't particularly like TOP or IRON, we entered to help Old Guard in TOP-CNG).

[Duncan King]

[quote name='Hyperbad' timestamp='1292290876' post='2538992']

[b]Invasion alliances never form[/b]
???
[/quote]

NPO and ODN were invasion alliances from NS. Fark, /b/, FOK, Ubercon, and GOONS were all invasion alliances from preexisting offsite communities. That's a pretty big chunk of players that wouldn't be here.

A lot of people came from NS but didn't join NPO or ODN. But they heard about this place through people who had joined CN from NS.

One I personally would have liked to have seen was Zenith go with MK as a protector instead of NATO. We would have been in WoTC with MK and probably put under harsh terms. But I've always thought that in that particular war, Zenith was in the wrong side.

I honestly don't think Zenith would had stayed solely in MK's corner after WoTC, however. Once our tech was extracted and our terms were completed, we would have moved closer towards the center again. We would have been a tossup in Karma if we weren't blackballed by the NPO's ilk. Sure, the former protectorate of MK thing would have been a stain, but I have and had at the time friendships with and a pretty good track record in Continuum leadership that I hope would have made a difference. Plus, Zenith was pretty fiercely independent internally in its time and I think our members would have resented being seen as an MK pawn as much as they eventually resented being seen as a TPF pawn.

But all of the above is theoretical of course.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Duncan King

[Monster]

[quote name='Geoffron X' timestamp='1292291411' post='2539001']
MHA and Citadel follow their treaty commitments with Continuum alliances. Bam, NPO victory. Woulda been that easy.
[/quote]

Considering the sides were set in terms of that long before the war, it isn't that easy. Not really sure how you could get the 3 alliances in Citadel that hated your guts to change, to be honest.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Antoine Roquentin

[Mergerberger II]

Aside from some of what has already been mentioned, one of the most interesting things to see I think would be if the Moldavi Rebellion had not occurred and instead Ivan was given the title of Emperor of NPO. I think it would be a very different world today. Can't say how exactly, but certainly different.

[Hyperbad]

[quote name='Duncan King' timestamp='1292291642' post='2539010']
NPO and ODN were invasion alliances from NS. Fark, /b/, FOK, Ubercon, and GOONS were all invasion alliances from preexisting offsite communities. That's a pretty big chunk of players that wouldn't be here.

A lot of people came from NS but didn't join NPO or ODN. But they heard about this place through people who had joined CN from NS.
[/quote]
The alliances having never formed and the players never coming over are two very different things.

[Banksy]

[quote name='Duncan King' timestamp='1292288486' post='2538948']
LiquidMercury not ordering a hold in the Almost War (Athens v. TPF). TPF's allies go in and bring their allies with them. The sides as lined up were pretty even (and possibly stacked against SuperComplaints) so it could have been a fun war. It would probably have also prevented or severely delayed TOP/CNG.
[/quote]
I expect we would have lost this war tbh. FOK were staying out of it too. I don't know how different the world would have been though. The reps would have flowed the other way but we would have still complained about the 'game stagnation' etc.

[quote name='Geoffron X' timestamp='1292291411' post='2539001']
MHA and Citadel follow their treaty commitments with Continuum alliances. Bam, NPO victory. Woulda been that easy.
[/quote]
Citadel was split and MHA didn't follow you because of their connection with the Gremlins and their role in Karma. If Gremlins didn't take that lead, the Karma war wouldn't have occurred at that time anyway, so you can't really decontextualise the situation and say "if x y and z had joined us it would have been fine."

[bros]

LUE allying with NPO.

Yari not posting his LUEicide.

PC not being kicked out of GGA.

[WorldConqueror]

[quote name='Mergerberger II' timestamp='1292291965' post='2539013']
Aside from some of what has already been mentioned, one of the most interesting things to see I think would be if the Moldavi Rebellion had not occurred and instead Ivan was given the title of Emperor of NPO. I think it would be a very different world today. Can't say how exactly, but certainly different.
[/quote]
Or if Vlad had beaten Ivan in the election after we came to CN and become the first Emperor.

[Cager]

a great CN alternative history would be having the game become exciting again instead of stagnating in boredom as we have now.

[Banksy]

[quote name='Hyperbad' timestamp='1292291969' post='2539014']
The alliances having never formed and the players never coming over are two very different things.
[/quote]
The two are very closely linked. Without the alliances, the players wouldn't have flowed to the same extent because there would have been less 'word of mouth' recruitment. They would have joined, but where would they go, and how would they have set up CN? Without the NPO, much of the game's infrastructure (organisational, but also political too) wouldn't exist. The game was influenced by the structure and interaction between the early alliances.

[Monster]

[quote name='Banksy' timestamp='1292292257' post='2539017']
I expect we would have lost this war tbh. FOK were staying out of it too. I don't know how different the world would have been though. The reps would have flowed the other way but we would have still complained about the 'game stagnation' etc.

Citadel was split and MHA didn't follow you because of their connection with the Gremlins and their role in Karma. If Gremlins didn't take that lead, the Karma war wouldn't have occurred at that time anyway, so you can't really decontextualise the situation and say "if x y and z had joined us it would have been fine."
[/quote]

I don't know. It would have been a pyrrhic victory but I think supercomplaints would have come out on top anyway like Delta has said or maybe a draw. The alliances on the TPF side for the most part weren't prepared and the strategy relied entirely on TOP. I don't think it would have ended with them in a position to demand reps.

It was moreso the lead they had taken before the war through some of their ideological actions rather than during it. With the codex and leaving Continuum, a clash with NPO was made a possibility and others would take the lead following it, like Delta. Surprisingly a lot of the pre-Karma/Karma info is available on GOD's wiki page.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Antoine Roquentin

[Ardus]

Legion stays out of GWI.
Legion/ODN join in GWII.
VE sticks with the war and launches its nukes in the GCW.
TPF stays in the UjW.
Ivan takes over NPO in the Moldavi Rebellion.
Neutral Menace ever actually breaks its neutrality in a close war.
Coincidence Coalition presses TPF-war into true global conflict.
TOP refrains from preemptive strike and waits for treaties to call on it.

[Ironfist]

If GATO and NPO had switched places early on, the world would be a lot more chill.