Stories I would love to read but will never write

[beatrice_otter]

One is an alternate history of the US and Great Britain.  The UK retains political control over the Colonies by sacrificing economic control (i.e. they reduce taxation, and the Colonies don't rebel, possibly with grants of nobility thrown in to various colonial elite and younger sons of nobles from England who are willing to emigrate).  With economic affairs largely in control of Americans, economic growth grows roughly the same as it did in our time line, but since we're still part of the UK there's a much higher percentage of British elite investing in factories and plantations and things as they become really profitable, and American elites becoming tied in there.  By the end of the 19th Century America is the economic powerhouse of the British Empire, and Queen Victoria moves the capital to America to keep a better eye on us and to cement our position in the Empire.  (Before you scoff, remember that when Rome finally fell to the barbarians for the last time, Rome hadn't been the capital of the Roman Empire for several centuries, Constantine the Great having moved the capital to a small town in Turkey called Byzantium which he rebuilt and expanded and renamed Constantinople, which is modern-day Istanbul.)  What does that do to colonialism in general?  In the 19th Century, the European nations went all-out conquering Africa and Asia; if Great Britain's focus was on America instead of India and China, what would be different?  And how would the political situation in Europe change if the UK was focused more on Spain and Mexico than France and Germany and Russia?

Another is a futurefic about Jack Harkness getting therapy to get the inside of his head fixed.  Something like, if he could kill himself, he would, but he's going to be around for a long time and he's been wallowing in angst and obsessions for so long and he's tired of it and he doesn't want to have to worry about hurting people he cares about by accident because he's a self-absorbed wanker any more.  Because I love him, but I am firmly of the opinion that a good therapist is worth zir weight in gold, and boy does Jack need it.

Comments

Re: alt history

[fyborg23]

Humm, I suppose with the alt!UK being focused on the Americas, the so-called "Great Game" wouldn't be as extensive. Although I'm sure the Monroe Doctrine equivalent [the Brittana Doctrine?] in that universe would be expressed rather stridently against Spain and Mexico, making the US's annexation of half of Mexico look like a playground dispute.

/bunny attack!

[st_aurafina]

Wow, I wonder what that would mean for Australia? I mean, if they never had to go looking for another penal colony to develop. *ponders* Maybe we'd be French? Maybe we'd be a Portuguese colony?

I love an alternate history.

[beatrice_otter]

Well, but on the other hand, would they have wanted to use America as a penal colony? In this scenario, America is really valuable to the Empire, and grows in value over time. It's not a backwater dumping-ground for people you don't want. No, it's more likely to me that Australia would still be a British possession, and India, but that the English wouldn't really have bothered much with Africa, leaving it to the French and Germans.

[st_aurafina]

Well, we might be! We are, after all, very, very far away, which is good for your dissident prisoners. Maybe we'd have even more Irish than we already do.