Bathroom Monologue: 6 Badass Revolutionary War Alternate Histories Nobody Uses
Canon.
The U.S. is
overwhelmingly victorious. How overwhelmingly? They’ve invaded England. They
don’t have a lot of industry yet, and frankly, the U.S. sees something in this “Military
Industrial Complex.” It could take them places. Shocked by the new
nation’s early defeat of British troops, the Germans refuse to extended
Hessian support to the King. At the same time, Wales
and Ireland hate England and lend themselves as naval bases
for the biggest invasion of the British Isles
since the Vikings.
One
colony (pick your favorite) decides not to fight the war, but rather sits
it out. After the U.S.
declares independence, this colony declares itself a sovereign nation and
freely leases land to the Brits who still want to do business in
sub-Canada. It rapidly turns into the most passive aggressive shopping
district in North America, with
revolutionaries and loyalists constantly running into each other at the
vast array of neutral boutiques.
The
world really is flat. George Washington and is fellow homies plot to trick
the world’s greatest navy into sailing off the edge of the planet by
setting up a fake continent and drawing them into a war that isn’t there.
Ala the end of The
Hobbit, in the middle of the bloody Revolutionary War, a third army
arrives to interrupt. But it ain’t the goblins: it’s the Mayan Apocalypse.
It turns out all those calendars won't run out for a few centuries, but humans won't be around for those years. Soldiers of both sides are suddenly united in their desire to get the heck
off of the continent before they’re all consumed by a regional end-times,
and to warn Europe of their impending
doom.
The
Vikings realized the Jersey Shore was more amenable that the tundra of
northern Europe and simply moved here.
With a few hundred years of radically superior weather and vaster terrain,
they’ve really leapt forward as a culture, putting the Enlightenment to
shame. Their only real rivals are the Native Americans, who think Vikings
are crazy for putting so much emphasis on Physics, and have developed
their own more holistic curriculum. Red Cloud invents the first affordable
family-sized Sedan around 1776, when Europe arrives and awkwardly demands land rights.
It’s a lot like getting robbed by a kid with a cap gun, but the Vikings and
Native Americans are too nice to just ignore them. It’s really less of a
“war” and more of a “long sigh hello.”
Benedict Arnold is gunned down by fellow colonists for
his perceived betrayal. Blown to needless bits, he is narrowly saved by the
cutting edge of science at the time, with his missing limbs replaced by a
steampunk nightmare. He becomes the 1770’s answer to RoboCop, mindlessly
following the Prime Directives of the Magna Carta in his pursuit of bringing
down the rebels. But are the emotions that once harbored in Arnold’s breast really dead, or does his soul
lurk within that cog-powered body?
I like #5 a lot.
ReplyDeleteThink we could get a #tuesdayserial out of it, Tony?
DeleteYou have been nominated! For more details see this post http://wp.me/p218fu-8h !^^
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