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The D-Day thread discussion got me to thinking, what if Day-D failed? The Race to Berlin never happens, Nazi Germany still falls to Soviet Russia, but this time The Iron Curtain falls across the English Channel.

With access to all of Western Europe's financial and industrial power, is Soviet Russia actually able to make a lasting empire? With no Potsdam Conference, is the State of Israel created? What implications does this have for the Middle East?

Is there any fiction that deals with this scenario?

The original Command & Conquer Red Alert (Soviet Campaign) gives one possibility for this. After that it's up to the player's imagination what happens next.

I know different WW2 scenarios is big in the alternate history fiction, so there must be some book or series that takes a guess.

What if, 10,000 years ago, we developed space travel instead of agriculture? Would the Romans have lost to the Carthaginians instead of destroyed them? If so, would that mean that today we would all be traveling via space elephant and speaking Hannibalese?

Think the best one I read was about Rommel not commiting suicide. Fought the allies to a standstill at the Rhine...literally told Hitler to "F" off on the Bulge operation and diverted most resources of that operation to the Eastern Front to stall the Russians coming spring offense. That's one of the few scenario's I think could have happen. Rommel knew it was "game over" and was more willing to surrender to the Allies then to the Russians. He was in "Damage Control" mode after the Rhine series of battles.

Our Timeline

If Rommel was still alive would we have tried him at Potsdam?

 rubiksnoob wrote:
What if, 10,000 years ago, we developed space travel instead of agriculture?

Hmm...interesting question.

If space travel became before agriculture, how advanced would the space travel be? I mean, a society of hunter gatherers has to range far in order to satiate a population that would grow exponentially larger as time goes on assuming there are no interfering population disasters.

Space travel would only be rudimentary enough to travel to non-inhabitable planets at first, thus severely limiting the usefulness of space travel technology.

Does this hypothetical also factor in too if space travel also derives the ability to terraform hostile terrains as well?

I think agriculture and space travel be side by side.....terraforming....space habs with hydroponic farms....one with the other.....since weight and mass be an issue. Why be there need of oxygen tanks if oxygen is derived from plants?

 Jihadin wrote:
I think agriculture and space travel be side by side.....terraforming....space habs with hydroponic farms....one with the other.....since weight and mass be an issue. Why be there need of oxygen tanks if oxygen is derived from plants?

You would also need to engineer space travelers to be able to handle the rigors of space flight for extended periods of time. Perhaps some genetically modified humans, of superhuman strength say....about ten feet tall and higher with the equivalent abilities of regular army marines.

Perhaps some genetically modified humans, of superhuman strength say....about ten feet tall and higher with the equivalent abilities of regular army marines.

If society at that time finds it acceptable to play "God" and tinker with genetics. I can see it though happening in this scenario because we want it to. Why ten feet tall though? Why not go with "Khan" style? NVM...he out thought his creators I think. How about we do the "Soldier" thing to them...Kurt Russel movie

I thought he was referencing space marines...

 Jihadin wrote:
Think the best one I read was about Rommel not commiting suicide. Fought the allies to a standstill at the Rhine...literally told Hitler to "F" off on the Bulge operation and diverted most resources of that operation to the Eastern Front to stall the Russians coming spring offense. That's one of the few scenario's I think could have happen. Rommel knew it was "game over" and was more willing to surrender to the Allies then to the Russians. He was in "Damage Control" mode after the Rhine series of battles.

Our Timeline

If Rommel was still alive would we have tried him at Potsdam?

Got a title for that book? Sounds interesting.

I think, yes, Rommel would have been tried. Don't know about the verdict/sentencing though. I can't imagine an execution.

feeder wrote:
The D-Day thread discussion got me to thinking, what if Day-D failed? The Race to Berlin never happens, Nazi Germany still falls to Soviet Russia, but this time The Iron Curtain falls across the English Channel.

With access to all of Western Europe's financial and industrial power, is Soviet Russia actually able to make a lasting empire? With no Potsdam Conference, is the State of Israel created? What implications does this have for the Middle East?

Is there any fiction that deals with this scenario?

There wouldn't have been much industrial power for the Soviets to capture if they had all that Germany got at its largest. Europe was pretty well gutted.

Russian wouldn't be able to take England for the same reasons the Germans couldn't. No way of contending with the Royal Navy or crossing the channel in force.


If the Russians don't take the Middle East, its much the same as it is now. The existence or not of Israel is not what makes the ME unstable. Russia almost certainly does turn their attentions to the ME however, conquering it as the Cold War continues. Its possible that the Cuban Missile crisis never occurs as Russia focuses on the ME, while getting bogged down.

Afghanistan is probably still the clusterfeth it was for the Soviets at this time. That area is never fully brought under control, but Russia would be able to at least occupy the Fertile Crescent and possibly all the way down into Egypt.


The result would be a very large and resource rich USSR. Although I still see them collapsing for the same reasons, possibly even faster due to having such a huge area of land to control. An area not even the red army could hope to contain.

 rubiksnoob wrote:
What if, 10,000 years ago, we developed space travel instead of agriculture? Would the Romans have lost to the Carthaginians instead of destroyed them? If so, would that mean that today we would all be traveling via space elephant and speaking Hannibalese?

What if the Library of Alexandria had not burned and lost the collect knowledge it contain? Specifically what if someone had a spark of inspiration with the Aeolipile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile and started the industrial revolution in the 1st Century AD?

 WarOne wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:
What if, 10,000 years ago, we developed space travel instead of agriculture?

Hmm...interesting question.

If space travel became before agriculture, how advanced would the space travel be? I mean, a society of hunter gatherers has to range far in order to satiate a population that would grow exponentially larger as time goes on assuming there are no interfering population disasters.

Space travel would only be rudimentary enough to travel to non-inhabitable planets at first, thus severely limiting the usefulness of space travel technology.

Does this hypothetical also factor in too if space travel also derives the ability to terraform hostile terrains as well?

Ok, I'm game to indulge in a little navel-gazing.

Hypothesize that rather than being temples/monuments (and that the wackier conspiracy theorists/spiritualists are right), stone circles and menhirs e.g. stonehenge etc are portals between planets. As a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence, technology could potentially stagnate. As we wouldn't need to advance, we could just trial-and-error the 'safe' portals and then just hop around the universe living off a bunch of stuff on various different worlds, knowing by the time we come back full circle things would have 're-stocked'. Admittedly there are a lot of variables I've left out of the equation, but hey my lunchbreaks are fairly short and my pizza is rapidly cooling...

But hopefully it will provide a jumping-off point

What if the Aztecs had been ships and discovered Europe?

 WarAngel wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:
What if, 10,000 years ago, we developed space travel instead of agriculture? Would the Romans have lost to the Carthaginians instead of destroyed them? If so, would that mean that today we would all be traveling via space elephant and speaking Hannibalese?

What if the Library of Alexandria had not burned and lost the collect knowledge it contain? Specifically what if someone had a spark of inspiration with the Aeolipile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile and started the industrial revolution in the 1st Century AD?

I have always found this one interesting.

However, the main reason I think steam power would not have caught on is that so much work was done by slaves the elites had no real insentive to save on labor.

However, I'm no expert on the era.

That has been an argument used for why steam power did not catch on. You don't need labor saving devices when the entire culture is based on slavery.

Now the other argument is that steam power, being effectively restricted to temples, was not actually seen by anyone, and therefor the concept did not take flight.

Interestingly, if this invention had been seen or discovered by some Goth Barbarian the whole world might have changed.

I think its an interesting question and I don't know.

A Soviet controlled Europe could on one hand have stabilized world politics as the Soviets would (seemingly) have a much stronger hold on things and the US and UK might have been more intimidated to oppose them. At the same time they might not be intimidated and the situation could have been much tenser than it was in reality.

If Rommel was still alive would we have tried him at Potsdam?

Doubt it. Rommel was popular among the Allies for many reasons. The war in North Africa didn't see that many war crimes compared to the rest of the war, and Rommel himself regularly ignored orders that would violate the rules of war (Rommel or his staff, exactly who is up to debate). Rommel was also extremely popular among Germans and I suspect the Allies would have used him as a figure head for rebuilding Germany.

Y'all are thinking way too small on this. If Overlord had failed, the impact of that event on the Allies is far greater than the impact on Germany. We're talking a complete change over of Allied command, a likely schism being dug between American and Commonwealth forces (as they blame eachother for the loss of so many lives), a turning of sentiment on the home front (the European War was not as 'popular' in the United States at the time as was the Pacific War, its likely the general populace would have turned against the countries political leadership and demand that we focus our efforts on the Pacific), etc. etc. etc. Hell, it might even be possible that the failure on the beaches would force the British to seek a "separate peace" with the Germans, though I find the chance of success there unlikely given that Hitler was pretty set on doing things his way.

Also, its likely that the failure of the Allied landings would have been the catalyst to bring Spain into the war on the side of the Axis. While Spain could hardly turn the war in favor of either side, what it would do is allow the Axis the means to potentially cut the English off from the Mediterranean (unfortunately far too late to save the North African Campaign) which would deny them significant resources and free up considerable Axis manpower that no longer needed to be on high alert to protect the Mediterranean coast. Likewise the entrance of Spain would supply the Axis with a large number of personnel perfect for garrison duty on the Western Front (lest those pesky allies try their hand at a second invasion) freeing up lots of high quality German troops to counter the Soviets in the East.

I doubt the UK would surrender because of a failed D-Day. The knowledge of events on the eastern front I think was a bit sketchy, but the allies knew Russia was winning, and as much as the Russians wanted a second front they didn't need it to win. Especially after air and sea superiority was established for the Allies I don't think anyone was going to back down even if things didn't go as well as they'd like.

I didn't say surrender, I said seek a separate peace, I.E. - I dont shoot you if you dont shoot me. Considering that England had committed the last of its available ground forces at the time to the landings, I don't really see how England could have continued to fight on if Overlord had failed (aside from bombing campaigns and naval operations).

As for the Eastern Front, Bagration didn't kick off until the end of June, while the Russians were advancing, they hadn't yet restored their pre-war borders and a Soviet victory over Germany wasn't yet a foregone conclusion. While I doubt Germany would have been able to transfer its presence in the West to the East to blunt the invasion in its opening days, I have no doubt that the eventual transfer of some 20 or so (IIRC) fresh well trained, and VERY well equipped Divisions to the East in say late July or August to form a second line would have stopped the Soviets dead in their tracks and given time for the Germans to regroup. And thats not even included the ridiculous number of poorly trained but still highly effective replacement forces Germany was able to call up to supplement their fighting strength (as it did historically in our timeline in the West).

The war for Germany was a forgone conclusion by 1944. Russia just had too much manpower, industry, and willingness to win behind it to be stopped. Granted I'm sure that without overlord the war might have gone on another two or three years.

it doesn't change the situation for the Germans. They still had to keep divisions in Europe.

If DDay fails its likely a new attack would have followed within the next couple of months. Indeed, once Bagration kicks off, there would be a real impetus to do so.

Indeed, it might be argued that a less costly invasion would have occurred had DDay occurred in August or September as German forces are transferred to the Eastern Front.

I think another landing in Europe would have been unlikely. The plan was pretty heavily opposed by many people who had some say in the conduct of the war, likely any follow-on attempt would have been at Norway or a redoubling of efforts in Italy/along the mediteranean coastline.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think another landing in Europe would have been unlikely. The plan was pretty heavily opposed by many people who had some say in the conduct of the war, likely any follow-on attempt would have been at Norway or a redoubling of efforts in Italy/along the mediteranean coastline.

There was a second invasion in the South of France shortly thereafter. I could envision that still occurring, maybe delayed by a month or two. Again, once Bagration starts, the Germans are under immense pressure. Without active allied forces in France, I'd proffer forces would be drawn off, making another invasion and follow up much easier.

I like the industrial revolution thing in 1st Century AD, that would have been really cool. I wonder if it could have prolonged the Roman Empire, though they still didn't have the Navy or the Gunpowder to equal what the Colonial Powers did with it.

If that had happened I think gunpowder would have been invented at some point. Or at the very least mechanized bolt throwers and such.

The Roman Empire could very well have remained in place to the modern day.

 Jihadin wrote:


If Rommel was still alive would we have tried him at Potsdam?

In almost any "What If" involving Rommel not committing suicide, I cannot foresee him being tried. It was fairly public knowledge that he was not a member of the Nazi party until they forced him into it with the promotion to Field Marshall... Only other way I think he'd be tried, is if in the alternate timeline he was a Nazi since 39.

The Afrika Corps and his "Ghost Division" all had spotless records on the war crimes front while Rommel was in command as far as I recall. The Desert Fox was a good dude as well as the incarnation of a minor deity of warfare.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If that had happened I think gunpowder would have been invented at some point. Or at the very least mechanized bolt throwers and such.

The Roman Empire could very well have remained in place to the modern day.

They did have mechanized bolt throwers - at least the Byzantines did. They used a crank to fast load a magazine fed cross bow, like a modern heavy machine gun. Quite cool.

I don't think Rome could have industrialized outside of certain areas. They already had a surplus population built on slavery. in areas where technology was needed, they actually were quite advanced (for example, using giant impromptu water reservoirs to build and effectively blow up hillsides to get at the minerals underneath.

Rome with gunpowder however, oh my. I could envision an empire spanning Europe, North Africa, and all the juicy parts of Asia.
Its almost like there was a Star Trek episode like this...

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
The Afrika Corps and his "Ghost Division" all had spotless records on the war crimes front while Rommel was in command as far as I recall. The Desert Fox was a good dude as well as the incarnation of a minor deity of warfare.

Given that the 7th Division went to the eastern front after the war in France, it's not likely they never committed any war crimes. Of course on the eastern front Rommel no longer commanded the unit.