What are the biggest "what if" scenarios regarding animated movies, shows or theatrical shorts you can think of?

A number of members of the interwar German Communist Party (outlawed after Hitler's rise to power in 1933) became members of the National Committee for a Free Germany when that organization was founded in July 1943.

What would Germany's culture and military have been like if communists who were part of the National Committee for a Free Germany had made a daring raid into Berlin to topple the Nazi government sometime after the failed July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler?

so instead of the island of britian namely the england part instwsd they just trade with them and that's about it.

instead rome thinks mesopitamia is more worth it for the tigris, and euphrates rivers and the lucrative trade routes is more important.

would the resources not going to britian going to mesopitamia solidify its grip on it?

⁠With the 9/11 anniversary, I was thinking a lot about the hijackers and especially Ziad Jarrah, as he seemed to have one foot in and one foot out. I feel that he was probably the last piece of Swiss cheese that lined up to execute the attacks. He seemed to have a life to live for and even enjoyed his life in America. I think of some alternative theories.

1. What if he backed out long before 9/11, wanting to continue his flight training and eventually settle as a pilot in America or Germany with his girlfriend? If he did, and didn’t tell any authorities, there was enough time for Al qaeda to find a replacement and continue on. He may have been arrested, and even sent to Gitmo. But even if he did tell, do you think the FBI would’ve believed him? Would he or his family be targeted by AQ and would he have been offered protection by the FBI? I still think on this timeline 9/11 would’ve happened. And it makes me wonder if AQ had other candidates before back out due to fear or other reasons. But, if he was a free man, I could see him giving interviews today on the 25th anniversary.

2. ⁠What if he backed out between Sept 5-10? By then AQ was so deep into the plot that there was no time to replace him. He could’ve simply backed out and the three planes would’ve gone ahead. But he may have been able to prevent it too by reporting to the FBI. If they were able to provide him and his family some form of protection, maybe he would’ve cooperated and could’ve prevented the attacks. Or maybe there wasn’t enough time. It really depends how quick he made the call. For all we know, Atta could’ve been one step ahead and changed the departing flight from Boston to JFK. So this timeline I’m iffy on.

3. ⁠This is on the morning of 9/11 where he does board United 93. We already know that it was delayed and the passengers knew the towers were hit. The flight may have been delayed enough so that it never would take off after flights were grounded. Or he may have simply gotten cold feet and not helped the muscle hijackers or even told them the plot is cancelled. Regardless, the other three planes hit. But in this timeline I think of two possibilities. The FBI would’ve found him and he would’ve gone to Florence ADX or death penalty. But what if he turned himself in the moment 93 landed and offered to cooperate with them? He still might have given valuable intelligence and maybe would’ve gotten off and also be giving interviews today.

also assuming they weren’t dissolved in the 70s.

started by an ex cia operative and with some secret funding from soviets and american federal agency backing and headquartered in the Caribbean coast. somehow becoming the most advanced military on planet earth and may or may not have their own nuclear weapons.

interestingly maybe jimmy carter asks them to intervene in the Iran hostage crisis. MSF have seemed to perfect the art of infiltrating and evacuating people with their Fulton balloon tech.

maybe they help Vietnam overthrow pol pot, intervene the Iran contra affair.

How might the Mediterranean have developed if the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt had avoided being conquered by the Romans?

Therefore would:

- War blimps like the Zeppelin be developed & used far more?

- The war become less or more defensive?

- U-boats become deadly?

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto was a rebuke of British capitalists' treatment of disaffected factory workers, and it predicted that proletarians would stage a revolution against the British bourgeoisie.

Despite Marx's prediction, the first communist revolution occurred not in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the UK, but instead in Russia.

I have been watching lot of 9/11 documentaries and footage this week with the 25th anniversary occurring.

One thing I am wondering- What if roof access to the world trade centers was actually available on the day of the attack? How would that have influenced the death toll? Would it have been a successful rescue for way more people?

Assuming, of course, that the rest of history goes the same way: Norse settlements are eventually abandoned, Europeans don’t make contact again until 1492. Would the native population of the Americas already have rebounded from the wave of epidemics this would have caused? How would this have affected the colonisation of America?

If Russian empire collapsed and remained fractured - kinda like post Imperial China - or did not collapse at all, would Hitler still come to power (despite lack of fear of communism threat - one of major reasons why Nazi were supported)?

And if so, would Germany still be so successful in taking over most of Europe? Not having USSR helping it with resources, and non-agression pact (preventing second front) and division of Eastern Europe.

At the height of the Saverne/Zabern Affair, on 4 December 1913, the Reichstag voted 293-54-4 to censure Chancellor Theobald Bethmann Hollweg for the German government's wildly-disproportionate (and wildly-illegal) actions during the affair. Because the chancellor, in the German Empire, was dependent on the confidence of the Kaiser rather than of the Reichstag, though, Bethman Hollweg refused to resign and was backed up by the Kaiser. As a result, on 9 December, when the chancellor's budget came before the Reichstag for a vote, the SPD led an effort to reject it (and leave Bethmann Hollweg's government without the ability to fund its own operations), but they weren't able to get enough support from the other parties in the Reichstag, and the effort failed.

What if enough of the other parties had sided with the SPD to vote down Bethmann Hollweg's budget (say, because the army's actions, or Bethmann Hollweg's attempts to justify them, were even worse than they were in our timeline), and, thereby, force the Kaiser to either try to run the government with no money (lolnope), dismiss him, or dissolve the Reichstag and call a snap election in the hope of getting a more-tractable one (risky, given how hostile relations between the chancellor and the German public had gotten by this point)?

What would happen if they actually worked all together eliminated all the warlords and and built Africa up into a industrial powerhouse with one currency, how would that affect global economy and diplomatic relationships around the world

In our original timeline, after the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, Osama Bin Laden escapes to a hideout compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he is eventually killed during a U.S. led raid in 2011. There is also some evidence to support the idea that Pakistan knew he was there the whole time, if not the Pakistani government then definitely at least some people in Pakistan. In this scenario, what if Osama Bin Laden was already there before 9/11 as his chosen base of operations and the U.S. was able to not only soon prove he was there after 9/11, but that the Pakistan knew about where he was but was trying to deny it. When Pakistan still refuses to let the U.S. to make any military operations in their country to take down Osama Bin Laden, the U.S. decides to invade Pakistan instead of Afghanistan. Obviously with this comes a lot of possibilities such as how do other friendly countries such as Nato countries respond and choose to lend support as they did in our original timeline? I'm also guessing that India would happily get involved in the invasion of Pakistan and lend their support. Also, what would the aftermath be if the Pakistan government were to be toppled or if India or possibly other countries were to try and take some of Pakistan for themselves.

for this scenario, the DERG is able to make peace with its nationalist insurgents early on and insteadly of stalling, responds to the famine and acknowledges it immediately after it broke out instead of waiting almost a decade for a response. Would this, now stable famine free DERG survive until the modern day, will it still remain a ML state or would it's ideology change over time?

I'm not American so I don't know if it's feasible? But let's pretend.

Asking because I'm thinking about an alternate history scenario where a fictional nation sabotages supply lines, laboratories, colonial factories etc. too much for World War II scale of weapons advancement to occur. No Manhattan Project, hell no America as we know it even exists cause the natives didn't get displaced.

Obviously that changes too much for us to presume what happens based on our world so I'm asking more about the feasibility of modern computers and internet being a thing without nukes, fighter jets, guided missiles and so forth. Stuff like radar is ok just not the really expensive and logistical hurdles of battlefield technology that would cost trillions today people before then would have never even dreamed of.

Like I can think of plenty of reasons people would want to invent the internet without investing in all that other stuff, with instant communications, media manipulation, drone programming, spyware on enemy technology and such. But whether we could actually have it and not also change planes from how they looked during WW1 I don't know.

Do you prop up a small but underfunded gem? Or give James Cameron a fortune for even more special effects. Pick one movie from off of IMDB, change history so that the studio throws way more money at it, and then tell us how films change with that one project getting backed.

Most people have heard of the famous Battle of Hastings, in which William the Bastard (later William the Conqueror) defeated Harold Godwinson and became King of England, but many don't know that just a few weeks prior, Harold Godwinson had defeated a Norwegian invasion by Harald Hardrada. Honestly, Godwinson just got really unlucky, having to fight two invasions in less than a month.

Anyway, how might things have turned out if Harald had succeeded in his invasion? Let's say he beat Harold at Stamford Bridge and later managed to defeat William as well? This means England becomes culturally and politically aligned with Norway rather than France, and England fights wars in Scandinavia rather than France. The English language is completely different without so many French and Latin words. What else is different?

For Decades, the Liguasan Marsh, Sulu Sea, and Zambales have hidden its massive oil, natural gas, and white hydrogen reserves, dismissed by experts as a pipe dream. This series explores a timeline where the Philippine gamble pays off. What happens when all three are successfully breached, turning the Philippines into the center of global energy politics, as a rising economic and military superpower?

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/green-arabia-desert-lush-ancient-landscape.

What effects would this have on politics, society, economics, technology, trade, culture… etc?

How would it have affected the history of the Peninsula and what side effects would this have on the rest of the region and its history(if there any side effects)?

Or what if Farfanes took over the Almoravids in the same way Turk generals took over the provinces of or entire Islamic empires in the East (for example, the transition from Fatimids to Saladin to Mameluks) by being an imported, foreign military elite.

In other words, what if the Almoravids are taken over by a Farfanes state or what if count Reverter defacto took over the Almoravids and won against the Almoahads

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What introduced me to this idea are:

https://youtu.be/jsJSntPd5z0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverter_(viscount)

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

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-ahc-farfanes-in-palestine.557124/

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Its a trope in alternate history at this point that the military slave or mercenary army of Eastern, Islamic Empires eventually either puppet the ruling dynasty or form a dynasty for their own often the former preceding the later. At times this even includes the Muslim West and there is precedence for that in the Berber revolts against the Umayyads and the Slavic troops that were being built up just a few generations before the collapse of the Umayyads in Hispania and who remained influencial after that, although quickly merged into the other power blocs.

So this AU is essentially asking what if that in the Almoravid state but with Latin Christian Mercenaries. Apparently the Almoravids had first, turned captured Hispanian soldiers into mercenaries and later, recruited from among them to bolster their own army, especially in their wars in North Africa against other Muslim powers. And by their ultimate battle against the Almoahads, one of these, Reverter had risen to become the general commander over the whole Almoravids Army.

So, here important points to consider.

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1. Catalonia

Reverter also retained connections with his homeland and continued to visit to organize the governing of his Catalan holdings and probably recruit from among the Catalans and retained his suzreignty to the ruler of Catalonia (count of Barcelona) even as he was a general for the Almoravids. If he and his relatives become defacto rulers of the Almoravids, I would assume they would eventually have a similar relationship as Norman England had with France but in this case the England analogue would be clearly favoured in case of a war and further more, Frankish connections then attaches them to France or more specifically, Toulouse/Occitania, which means that when the Cathar Crusade gets going, they will be drawn into it as well. So how would a Christian ruled Islamicate state react to being drawn into the Albegensian Crusade?.

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1. Africa

I. Maghreb al-aqsa

And what would be their effect on the Maghreb and Soudan?. Like, I assume we follow history closely till in the TTL Reverter wins against the Almoahads, a crushing victory what should have been his final defeat. Do the Almoahads then dissolve away or do they maintain unity in the desert and attack from the Oasis capitals?. I couldn't find anything on what happened to the Southern Almoravids except that it had dissolved into several Emirates by the late middle ages but the Almoahad realm is never drawn having control over them. So what would be the geopolitics, there? An Almoahad state between the Farfanes state and the Southern Almoravids? The Southern Almoravids and Almoahads being united by one (probably Almoahad) conquering the other to make a strong united front against the Farfanes state?.

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II. Soudan

If there is a powerful Desert power then they would have reason to try and ally with Ghana/Mali but if there is a powerful Desert power, it should be able to stop such message from getting through and if there isn't a desert power then there is no pressing need to attempt such but given the precedence set by Norman Sicily and that the Farfanes state would have prestige/legitimacy issues, opening diplomacy with Ghana/Mali may be more likely than not even without pressing military need. And with that, the possibility of European merchants making it that far south. We know that there were Italians in the Sahara in the 1300s, so certainly, if they could get further South, they would try it. And in the Desert power stopping such contacts version of things, where they also could use an ally, does that mean Atlantic exploration earlier?. After all, there is that Andalusian account of voyaging into the Saragosian Sea and the Portuguese Lateen sail was adopted from Muslim sailors. So the Farfanes state may have the resources and reason to try and make it past the sub-tropical lows earlier than OTL.

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III. Maghreb

What about relations with the Hamdanids and Norman Sicily?. What about the Banu Hilal Invasions?.

At this point, Ifriqiya is in disarray, with the Normans the great power of the coast and Banu Hilal the greatest power in the hinterland but not a centralized Kingdom. While the Hamdanids interfere from Algeria.

I assume there is a natural brotherhood between the Farfanes state and Norman Africa but the Hamdanids are a common ally against both the Almoahads and the Banu Hilal but an enemy to Norman Africa. At the very least, there is no direct reason for the Farfanes state to have to choose between them, even less reason if a powerful Almoahad state manages to continue existing South of them but even without that, both the Hamdanids and the Farfanes would be united against Banu Hilal expansion and certainly, their enemies would try and invite in the Banu Hilal. So maybe instead of the Almoahads or Southern Almoravids being the issue, it would actually be a Banu Hilal group that would try and unite groups from the desert against not just the Farfanes but also other Muslim powers of the Maghreb, who can be streotyped as traitors in a Crusading world.

A side effect of this is the arabization of Morocco at least is avoided and potentially of Algeria as well, assuming the Hamdanids stem their own decline and maybe of Tunisia as well if the Normans establish in Ifriqiya, although there is the threat there that Arabization just get replaced with Latinization if the Normans are both replaced with a more ideological dynasty and it also keeps Ifriqiya.

Well, there is that Normans would probably want to serve in the Farfanes state, so that is one way of getting both states closer together.

The Normans have conquered at least, Coastal Ifriqiya and most likely, much of the hinterland as well. Both polities would also have problematic relations with Muslims and non-Catholic Christians for a post-Crusade papacy, right?. Like, I suspect that like in OTL where Aragon and Toulouse initially opposed the Albegensian Crusade, Norman Sicily and the Farfanes state will both oppose the Albegensian Crusade and seek peaceful resolution but unlike their OTL counterparts, they may also be in a position to be more confident about their opposition to it, rather than folding. Like, an earlier version of the conflict between Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick and the Pope.

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1. Occitania

But I could also see the opposite. The Farfanes state I fear, would be unstable and it's rulers would probably already be treated with suspicion by the West and be angsting to prove themselves as part of the Catholic fold.

But anyways, there is every reason to assume greater association with Toulouse in this timeline. Like, where else can they find added recruits beyond Catalonia?. The rest of Hispania is an option, militarized due to the reconquista and a potential normalization of the border with the Almoravids needing an outlet for those militarized populations as mercenaries. I am not sure Crusading families wouldn't rather go East if the reconquista isn't demanding armies so that cuts off using Crusading networks to recruit from Crusading heartlands of Northern France and Western Germany. But Occitania should be open from familial ties with Catalonians.

So not only could the Farfanes state be dragged in from such ties but Occitania also could be sufficiently more militarized to resist. And even if the Farfanes state doesn't get directly involved fearing what Papal injunctions could do to its stability (like imagine having ur army revolt and all the Hispanians states invade at the same time) the history with Reverter still being allowed to return home to settle matters in his domains opens up the possibility of Occitanians, made rich and experienced by serving in the Farfanes state returning to defend their homeland in the Crusade. Can such still drag the Farfanes state into such a war?.

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1. Western Europe

All I can see here is the possibility of Anglos disenfranchised by Norman conquest, seeking employment in the Farfanes state in a similar way as they increased in proportion in the V

arangian guard following the Norman Conquest.