# Favorite obscure counter-factual **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 25, 2023, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642 "2023-03-25T13:44:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/1 "2023-03-25T13:44:46Z")
So what’s your favorite obscure alternative timeline? What counterfactual historical outcome, that’s not one of the obvious ones (e.g. Hitler got into art school, Lee Harvey Oswald aim was off that day in Dallas, Hannibal had besieged Rome after Cannae, etc), would you like to see if you had a alternative timeline viewer? We aren’t saying you need to live in that timeline, just see what it’s like (maybe read Wikipedia if it exists:) ) You be the judge of what counts as obscure (I suspect the SD has higher standards for “obscure” than most people:) ). Also for this thread the counterfactual needs to be linked to a specific individual action or decision that could have turned out differently not a high level outcome (so no “what if the Mayan empire survived” without a specific action or decision that you think would have caused that) A couple of mine, not that I think either would have resulted in some utopian future, but I would like to see the results … - What if the byzantine emperor Constans II had not had such a heavy soap dish? He was an effective emperor and military leader , at a time when the Arab kingdoms were disunited. His reign stands out as the last point the byzantine empire might have been able roll back the Arab conquests. But then his disgruntled chancellor took the aforementioned soap dish and bashed his head in. - What if the Menshikviks had been successful in their coup of 1918? If they had actually arrested the senior Bolsheviks (as the senior Bolsheviks expected them to) and not decided restarting WW1 was the hill they were going to die (literally it turns out) on. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/2 "2023-03-25T15:12:20Z")
What if John Ford had been killed on Midway Island in 1942? How much would Hollywood history have changed as a result of this? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/3 "2023-03-25T15:41:00Z")
What if the 2000 butterfly ballot in Florida had been designed differently? What if Obama hadn’t insulted Trump during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner? (the one that motivated Trump to run for president) ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/4 "2023-03-25T15:51:49Z")
This won’t mean much to pretty much anybody on this board, but what the heck… What if Ipswich hung on to their 1 0 lead at Middlesbrough in the penultimate game of the 1980/81 league season. I’d like to think they went on to win the final game, therefore won the league, and then went on to win the European Cup in 1982 (no offence to any Villa fans on here). ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/5 "2023-03-25T16:03:43Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > What if Ipswich hung on to their 1 0 lead at Middlesbrough in the penultimate game of the 1980/81 league season. I’d like to think they went on to win the final game, therefore won the league, and then went on to win the European Cup in 1982 (no offence to any Villa fans on here). There is a whole other category of sporting counter factuals. Though it’s hard to find one that would have a genuine long term difference, even to the teams involved, let alone wider society. I mean in my head there are a ton of counter factuals for England penality misses alone. But would England footballing history have been that different if they had actually bloody won something the last 70 years? One that might have made a difference is the 2007(?) Match between spurs and man city that clinched man city the champions league spot and led to the Sheikh Mansour takeover of city (The considered opinion at the time is if Spurs had the champions league spot he’d have taken over them) There is also the Honduras-El Salvador match that led to the [football war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War). I don’t know if a different result would have avoided the war. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/6 "2023-03-25T16:07:09Z")
I have two, both involving JFK: What would the movie industry be like if JFK had never declared himself an Ian Fleming fan? What if JFK had not been a fan of space exploration? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/7 "2023-03-25T16:24:27Z")
Isaac Newton had access to both a prism and a microscope, but never thought to look at the spectrum produced by the prism _with_ the microscope. I don’t know exactly how that would have played out, but he may have advanced science substantially further had he done so. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/8 "2023-03-25T17:38:25Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > I have two, both involving JFK: > > What would the movie industry be like if JFK had never declared himself an Ian Fleming fan? What if everybody had understood that he was actually talking about _Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang_? ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/9 "2023-03-25T17:43:29Z")
Yes, my hypothetical is definitely more of a personal what if moment rather than something that would have changed the whole footballing landscape. Bobby Robson would atill have left for the England job and we would have still suffered a slow, painful decline, but at least we’d get another title out of it! ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/10 "2023-03-25T17:45:35Z")
Oh and didn’t some similar ‘Sliding Doors’ moment happen with regard to Chelsea and Mr Abramovich? They secured Champions League football on the last day of the 2002/03 season (if memory serves), at the expense of Liverpool, otherwise he may well have attempted to buy the Anfield-based club instead. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/11 "2023-03-25T17:47:46Z")
Fleming would probably have given up on the Bond novels after killing the titular character off at the end of From Russia With Love, which is presumably what you’re alluding to, but we may have still had a film or three out of it. I agree we may not have got the box office collosus that we ended up with though. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/12 "2023-03-25T17:53:29Z")
What would that have revealed to him? I don’t know specifically what he learned from either device. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/13 "2023-03-25T17:53:45Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > Fleming would probably have given up on the Bond novels after killing the titular character off at the end of From Russia With Love, which is presumably what you’re alluding to, but we may have still had a film or three out of it. There was a character called “Russia With Love” in _From Russia with Love_? If their parents named them that, they probably committed suicide. (I better go read the plot summary on Wikipedia.) Okay, I read it. One of us doesn’t know what “the titular character” of a novel means. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/14 "2023-03-25T18:01:36Z")
Ok I admit, it was a poor choice of word. One nil to you, eh. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/15 "2023-03-25T18:05:57Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > So what’s your favorite obscure alternative timeline? What counterfactual historical outcome, that’s not one of the obvious ones (e.g. Hitler got into art school, Lee Harvey Oswald aim was off that day in Dallas, Hannibal had besieged Rome after Cannae, etc), would you like to see if you had a alternative timeline viewer? I’d like to see the world in which the people of what’s now North America, instead of eating the native horses, domesticated them. That could have been started by a specific action by a specific person, though it’s unlikely that we’d ever know that person’s name. Or, though probably less obscure, the world in which they somehow became exposed to European diseases several hundred years before Columbus showed up, and with the diseases moving more gradually across the continent; so that the population developed resistance, and had time to recover in numbers. That could have happened if a small group of infected people made it over and infected enough others to start off endemic infections, but never made it back home to report on what they found. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/16 "2023-03-25T18:11:04Z")
From the prism, he learned that white light could be broken down into its component colors. I don’t know if he ever used a microscope. But if he _did_ use a microscope on the spectrum made by the prism, he would have seen that the spectrum is not continuous, but instead has a number of little gaps. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/17 "2023-03-25T18:12:25Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Or, though probably less obscure, the world in which they somehow became exposed to European diseases several hundred years before Columbus showed up, and with the diseases moving more gradually across the continent; so that the population developed resistance, and had time to recover in numbers. This could have been the consequence of contact between Americans and Vikings. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/18 "2023-03-25T18:18:00Z")
I wonder what would happen if Harold Godwinson’s right side followed orders and did not get tricked into pursuing William the Bastard’s fake retreat at the Battle of Hastings. This assumes that ultimately Harold would win the battle and England remained Anglo-Saxon. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/19 "2023-03-25T18:19:50Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > This could have been the consequence of contact between Americans and Vikings. Yeah. You could start a book that way, I expect. I gather that in practice those Vikings who made it across weren’t infectious? Or were the population levels low enough in that area that diseases fizzled out? ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642/20 "2023-03-25T18:28:16Z")
Seth MacFarlane dies on 9/11 and winds up becoming an animation martyr, Family Guy becomes a “What could have been?” show after ending with only 3 seasons due to both the real life cancelation and the death of it’s creator. It’s success doesn’t inspire the current generation of adult animated cartoons. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-obscure-counter-factual/981642.md?page=2)