Now, even tho I'm the OP, I should probably start with how I'd do the show. This is going to be a wall of text tho, so I'd like to preemptively apologize for that.
First, this may be a weird move, but I'd actually keep the theme of the first episode - and basically nothing else. "What if the Axis Won World War 2?" may be the most cliché alternate history scenario, but it also has one of the widest appeal to people not particularly invested in alternate history, and would serve as a decent introduction to both the genre of alternate history and the TV show Alternate History.
However, instead of starting with a flash-forward to the modern day, it would be a flash-forward to the 1960s, with the world on the brink of Nuclear Armageddon as the Cold War rages - but this is not a cold war against the Soviets, no, it is a cold war between the United States and the Third Reich.
After this, we would go back to talking about how the Germans won the war, or rather, the unlikelihood of this occurring. It would be explained that it would be virtually impossible for the Nazis to win World War 2, and this scenario would require everything - and I do mean
everything to go right for them, leaving them with a continent basically under their thumb, but incredible amounts of resistance to the ethnic cleansing occurring in Eastern Europe, an enemy across the English Channel in the form of a rather battered but still-surviving UK, rapidly decaying relations with the Japanese (leading to a situation analogous to the Sino-Soviet Split in our timeline), and the looming threat of an increasingly-hostile United States in possession of all those atomic scientists they persecuted for pursuing a type of science they dismissed as "Jewish" (although, for the sake of the scenario they eventually realize their mistake and start a very delayed nuclear weapons program).
In between this, we show the cultural effects of Nazi victory on this alternate US, which stayed out of the war but who now openly sympathize with the defeated allies. We see a "Brown Scare" emerging in the place of the Red Scare, with the Soviets seen as brave martyrs rather than a dangerous threat (and both their authoritarianism and radical politics swept under the rug). However, if you thought this would lead to a shift in the overton window to the left, you'd be both right and wrong. While many more overtly fascistic organizations do face more pushback than in our timeline, the US does maintain enough cognitive dissonance to continue the racial segregation policies which partially inspired the Nazis to begin with - at least until the 1960s, and many leftwingers are caricatured as naive pacifists who, though perhaps not as malicious as they're seen as in our timeline, would inadvertently allow for the triumph of the brown menace.
After exploring these details of the timeline, we'd start getting more into the details of the Nazi ideology-especially how inherently self-destructive and reliant on war it was, in a way that the Soviets weren't. It's likely that, if nuclear war was avoided (far from a guarantee given the utter arrogance and tactical stupidity of the Nazi regime), the Nazis would have collapsed pretty much immediately after the death of Hitler - which, in this timeline, they do, in the early 1970s. It starts with a series of revolts from the surviving Slavic population of Eastern Europe, as well as the German puppets controlling the rest of Europe leaving the Axis in a way similar to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. This results in a great deal of civil unrest in Germany, resulting in widespread political violence and the rapid collapse of the Nazi Government (albeit with nuclear civil war, a distinct possibility, avoided). The regime that replaces it is a very flawed Democratic Republic that, similar to Russia, is built on noble ideals but rapidly succumbs to authoritarianism. The resulting state controls more territory than German in our timeline, but is much more unstable, has a much lower standard of living, is a hotbed of both left and right-wing radicalism, has alienated itself from all of its neighbors, and is only a shadow of its former glory. While Nazism, due to its failures, is no longer popular except among German boomers, a lot of the crimes of the Third Reich are whitewashed in Germany in a similar way to other historical genocides.
As for the rest of Europe, Western Europe is a devastated shell of its former glory, with more democratic leanings than Germany, but devastated by decades of Nazi rule and no Marshall Plan to help them rebuild. Both nationalism and socialism - but NOT National Socialism - are very popular in many of them, with the overton window expanded far past its extent in our timeline and anti-German sentiment understandably being very common. Southern Europe is in a similar boat, although Italy is actually in a better situation to our timeline due to never having been invaded by the Germans. In this mess, the UK and Republic of Ireland, though not unscathed, stand as relative beacons of democracy and prosperity in an otherwise ruined continent.
Eastern Europe, for its part, is far worse, being in a boat similar to Yugoslavia in our timeline, with brutal ethnic conflicts not just between the native Eastern Europeans and German settlers, but with different Eastern European ethnic groups fighting each other over territorial disputes. Ethnic cleansings continue after the Nazis fall, however in most cases the oppressor-victim dynamic has been reversed, and many German settlers become refugees. It should go without saying that all sorts of crazy political ideologies emerge in Eastern Europe, including variations of Neo-Soviet Socialism and religious fundamentalism. Russia, for its part, would likely never rebuild, with several Russian-majority states claiming to be the true successor to either the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire and several states ruled by various ethnicities that were minorities in the old USSR.
In East Asia, the Japanese state is also waning, but less violently than Nazi Germany. Eventually, as much of the Co-Prosperity Sphere either violently revolts or drifts away, democratic reforms are enacted in Japan, and much of the remaining Co-Prosperity sphere is granted increased autonomy, resulting in the continuation of Japan and its still rather exploitative relationship with its puppet states.
However, the episode does not end on
too much of a downer, as after this it flashes forward to 2011 (present day for the show), with Western Europe having mostly rebuilt, Eastern Europe having calmed down a bit, the situation with Germany still very iffy and questionable, and Japan and the United States in a somewhat adversarial but still not exactly cold war relationship. It was unquestionably a worse timeline than our own, but in the end there is still hope for a good future, and it's implied that things will continue to improve at least in the near future.
After this pilot, since we don't have any details on the other scenarios spike was going to put in the show, I will include only brief descriptions of how I would interpret two episodes that were in the original promotional stuff which I would keep, followed by a list of 10 scenarios which interest me and that I would make episodes out of.
First, two episodes Spike wanted to make after the pilot which I'll keep:
- What if the Confederates won the Civil War? - This one will explore the military triumphs of the Confederacy, followed by the failures of their economy and international relations due to their refusal to end slavery. It will spend a lot of time systemically dismantling the Lost Cause of the South myth, and will explore the divergent history of the North, before ending with a Confederate-American war resulting in the Americans retaking several border states while the Confederate heartland falls to a massive slave revolt. In the end, the slaves win and declare a socialist republic, resulting in the Red Scare being much closer to home for the United States, basically being right on their doorstep. The scenario will continue after that, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave off on that cliffhanger.
- What if Dinosaurs Survived? - This one will start off by saying that if dinosaurs survived, humanity will have never evolved, but we will try to mash these two incompatible evolutionary paths together for the sake of an interesting story. Lots of drugs will be consumed during the writing and production of this episode, and we'll delve a lot into the realms of speculative biology while also showing how human society developed differently due to the presence of dinosaurs. It will likely be as wildly improbable as the original Spike Alternate History concept, but will literally admit as much and will try to be entertaining and maybe somewhat educational.
Now, as for the episodes I would create after these:
- What if the October Revolution Never Happened?
- What if We Made First Contact at Roswell?
- What if America Won the War of 1812?
- What if Christianity Never Existed?
- What if the Central Powers Won World War 1?
- What if Britain Had a Revolution?
- What if America Was Never Colonized?
- What if America Became Communist?
- What if the English Won in 1066?
- What if Napoleon Defeated Russia?
Now, this being Spike TV, they'd probably cancel the show after Season 1 for not being hammy enough and actually doing some historical research, but I still feel like I'd do a better job than they did in our timeline and if I do well enough the show might even amass a cult following.
