History Literature / AdAstraPerAspera

** Vacuity Pocket [=PLSM04=] [[ThePeshawarLancers suffered a meteor shower in the 1860s]], resulting in an India-centered British Empire and demon-worshipping Russians.

** Vacuity Pocket [=OTS5MPF=] [[{{Timeline-191}} have an independent Confederate defeated in the 1940s]] by an elected, socialist US government. When Coalition forces arrive, a centrist United States is busy fighting off "[[VideoGame/ModernWarfare a rather insane invasion by socialist “ultranationalist” Russia]] and various insurgent groups in the Middle East".

Written by rvbomally (but with plenty of contributions from other members), [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=181340 Ad Astra Per Aspera]] is one of the best timelines on [[AlternateHistoryDotCom AH.com]], despite only having started back in 2011. Best described as [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]] [-[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]-]!, the timeline's [[GrimDark grimdarkness]] rivals that of [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Warhammer 40k]]. Three galactic dictatorships lord over four trillion souls, galactic war is the status quo, democracy is virtually extinct, and a dozen conquered alien races are used as either slaves or cannon fodder.

-->Cosmically and historically, there are no significant differences until the mid-19th century. The only immediately discernible difference is ''[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the complete destruction of human life on Earth through some sort of apocalyptic event.]]

-->Cosmically and historically, there are no significant differences until the mid-19th century. The only immediately discernible difference is ''[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the complete destruction of human life on Earth through some sort of apocalyptic

** Vacuity Pocket [=OTS5MPF=] [[{{Timeline-191}} have an independent Confederate defeated in the 1940s]] by an elected, socialist US government. When Coalition forces arrive, a centrist United States is busy fighting off "[[ModernWarfare a rather insane invasion by socialist “ultranationalist” Russia]] and various insurgent groups in the Middle East".

Eventually, three [[GalacticSuperpower interstellar superpowers]] emerged from the ashes. The '''Coalition of Western Republics''', the Christian objectivist successor of the American and German Empires, wage constant war to impose ManifestDestiny across the galaxy. The '''Conseil of Workers' Systems''', a communist state that worship its leader as a living god, wage constant war with the capitalist Coalition. The '''United Technocracies of Man''', a textbook 1984 dictatorship with ''obliteration of the self'' as its official ideology, is a nonaligned kingmaker [[spoiler:and the ultimate winner of the Galactic War]]. Hundreds of minor powers are under the Big Three's yoke. All are more or less equally oppressive, and wages war only to pacify their internal populace.

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: The Vacuity is described by [[spoiler: AMNDA]] as "a dimension of pure chaos", with exposure causing Vacuity syndrome. Mild exposure victims suffer from nausea, vertigo, and paranoia, while severe exposure drive victims insane with horrifying hallucinations and nightmares - suicide is commonplace among the exposed. [[spoiler: It is implied that AMNDA, who have escaped into the Vacuity and went insane herself, is the cause.]]

* GratuitousGerman: Since ImperialGermany remained a great power until the Collapse and was allied with the United States, modern "American" are derived from a mix of English and German.

** Vacuity Pocket [=CNW54CA=] is influenced by ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', with Earth dominated by human-like artificial intelligence; the remnants of humanity are based on scavenger fleets.

** The cerafi have [[{{Halo}} plasma and crystalline ammunition, emphasizes personal honor, and promotions are based on kill counts.]]

* {{Room101}}: The Technocracy's Department 101 handles interrogation and torture of political dissidents.

* DeusExMachina: AMNDA - ''literally''.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Coalition of Western Republics is the most obvious example, but others exist.

* BadSanta: The Coalition somehow managed to turn ''Santa Claus'' into a bloodthirsty warrior figure that kills the unpatriotic without remorse.

* BrainUploading: Practiced by cybernetically augmented Ilya'novrodons.
* BreadAndCircuses: Using slave labor, the Coalition built an amusement park the size of Norway to glorify the state's superiority over the communist, the heretic and the xeno. Tickets are very expensive - most middle-class families can only visit once a decade. Considering that the Coalition's population stands at ''one trillion'', the park is still extremely profitable.
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: The United Technocracies and many smaller powers in the 28th century still use starships left over from the Collapse.

* [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Universes]]: Pan-galactic dictatorships, incessant warfare, and the enslavement of parallel Earths? To make things worse [[spoiler: an insane AI with godlike powers that seeks nothing less than [[OmnicidalManiac the destruction of all sentient life in all possible universes.]]]]

* HufflepuffHouse: The United Technocracies of Man is the weakest superpower out of the Big Three. Even the name of its current leader is unknown, but this is due to the nature of Technocratic ideology.

* InvisibilityCloak: Stealthy PoweredArmor with active camouflage systems is used by special ops branches, such as the Conseil's Red Guards.
* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Coilguns are the bread and butter of 28th-century warfare.

* LampshadeHanging: Parallel universes can have different laws of physics, making FTL travel possible in trueline. All inhabitants of Vacuity Pocket 941GR5 are [[RealityWarper reality warpers]] and [[{{Telepathy}} telepaths]].

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Augmentations are rare outside of the Conseil military.

* {{Room 101}}: The Technocracy's Department 101 handles interrogation and torture of political dissidents.

* SchizoTech: Many worlds have been reduced to pre-industrial technology after the Collapse and are just being rediscovered. On some worlds, it is not uncommon to see advanced energy weapons supplied by the superpowers in the hands of warriors on horseback.

* SpaceColdWar: Between the Coalition-dominated Springfield Pact and the Conseil-dominated Communist International. It lasted until the Galactic War.

* {{Qurac}}: The [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny Democratic Republic of]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Qurac]] is this trope InSpace
* TankGoodness: Tanks and other heavy armor still dominate most planetary battlefields.
** This is exacerbated by the near-complete absence of aircraft in warfare. Short of orbital support, tanks are the only way to break through heavily fortified areas.
* TheAlliance: The Springfield Pact.
* TheCaligula: Louise I, current General Secretary of the Conseil.
* TheEvilsOfFreeWill: The main goal of the Naturalist Social Republic of Gaia is to eradicate free will.
* TheEmpire: Hundreds of them, but none of them qualify as much as the Conseil of Workers' Systems, the most populous superpower.
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The Collapse (for Earth-centric humanity). [[spoiler:The Galactic War ends up becoming one for most involved.]]
* TheFederation: The Coalition of Western Republics is certainly one of the most evil examples ever created.
* TheKingdom: Nova Italia, while authoritarian and oppresive, it is also surprisingly confederated and the only relevant neutral nation.
* TheRemnant: Common, but usually not very important. The Batavian Soviet Republic is the main remnant of the USSR, and the Platte system is home to various German successor states.
* TheMagnificent: During the Galactic War, the Uhuru Syndicalist Republic was ruled by Colonel-President Prime Minister Emperor of America and King of Kings Malcom Madaki.

* TheWikiRule: [[http://aapa.wikia.com/wiki/Ad_Astra_Per_Aspera_Wiki Here.]]
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Victims of Severe Vacuity Syndrome.

-->Cosmically and historically, there are no significant differences until the mid-19th century. The only immediately discernible difference is ''[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the complete destruction of human life on Earth through some sort of apocalyptic event]]''.

* {{Spinoff}}: [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=247573 The Journey of the Sorcerers]], which is set in [[AlternateReality a verse]] where the [[TheFederation United Empire]] survived and became the dominating great power of the Milky Way.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Republic of New Rome against everyone else. New Rome is one of the last remaining democracies in the entire galaxy, but it's far from saintly.

A detailed galactic map can be found [[http://i51.tinypic.com/4lnjmr.png here.]]

** Early American history is a particularly hilarious example: America is ruled by a communistic Britain; after the Boston Massacre, where Americans are rounded into gas chambers, George Washington raised the Grand Army of the Republic and revolted. Washington took 300 men to a narrow pass at Yorktown to prevent the redcoat advance. Holding the line with swords and shields, Washington personally "cut through British soldiers and spilled their entrails on the snow-covered ground"; the subsequent Declaration of Independence enforced the American people’s unalienable right to capitalism. The United States Army sailed across the Pacific and conquered Chinese settlements there, fulfilling Washington's dreams of lebensraum. The northern states, influenced by communist Canada, seceded; AbrahamLincoln won the War on Treason with primitive missiles and steam tanks. After banning communism in America, a communist-influenced Congress sent killer-for-hire John Oswald to murder Lincoln in Dallas.

** In Vacuity Pocket [=RV782B1=], the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar was much more devastating and lasted for two decades. AbrahamLincoln refused to make ending slavery an Union war aim, and so the north fought purely to prevent southern secession. The Confederacy eventually liberalized and enacted the Emancipation Proclamation, which caused several southern states to rejoin the Union. With most of their territory lost, Confederate forces are overrun shortly afterwards.

* FantasticRacism: Most aliens are stereotyped as either monsters or subhuman primitives, with little rights to speak of. Even the seabrides, which serves in various human navies and can be given "honorary human" status, faces discrimination. [[spoiler: Inhabitants of auszeit (parallel) worlds are considered to be soulless copies of "trueline" individuals, justifying enslavement or extermination.]]

** In Vacuity Pocket [=RV782B1=], the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar was much more devastating and lasted for two decades. AbrahamLincoln refused to make ending slavery an Union war aim, and so the north fought purely to prevent southern secession. The Confederacy eventually liberalized and enacted the Emancipation Proclamation, which caused several southern states to rejoin the Union. With most of their territory lost, Confederate forces are overrun shortly afterwards.

** In Vacuity Pocket [=RV782B1=], the AmericanCivilWar was much more devastating and lasted for two decades. AbrahamLincoln refused to make ending slavery an Union war aim, and so the north fought purely to prevent southern secession. The Confederacy eventually liberalized and enacted the Emancipation Proclamation, which caused several southern states to rejoin the Union. With most of their territory lost, Confederate forces are overrun shortly afterwards.

** Vacuity Pocket [=RHJ2E=] have 2442 Earth ruled by an [[TheDraka Afrikaner slave culture]], which was promptedly exterminated by the Coalition.

The point of divergence is 1868, when President Andrew Johnson was successfully impeached by Benjamin Wade, who became his successor. The Wade-Davis Bill was passed, leading to increased tensions between the northern and southern states, as well as increased militarization. WorldWarOne and WorldWarII destroyed the British and French empires, leading to a tripolar world with the UnitedStates, the [[ImperialGermany German Empire]], and the [[GloriousMotherRussia Soviet Union]] as the superpowers. When an US president was assasinated in 1965, an increasingly totalitarian US was remade into the expansionist American Empire. As the three empires expand into space with the advent of FTL travel, an apocalyptic nuclear war occured on Earth in 2239. Offworld colonists are cut off from their Earth-based governments and each other, sparking a period of galactic anarchy known as the Collapse.

* ThousandYearReign: Actually realized with the American Empire. A celebratory announcement was made by the Coalition's Supreme Director in 2776, glorifying a twisted version of TheAmericanRevolution.

Eventually, three [[GalacticSuperpower interstellar superpowers]] emerged from the ashes. The '''Coalition of Western Republics''', the Christian objectivist successor of the American and German E[mpires, wage constant war to impose ManifestDestiny across the galaxy. The '''Conseil of Workers' Systems''', a communist state that worship its leader as a living god, wage constant war with the capitalist Coalition. The '''United Technocracies of Man''', a textbook 1984 dictatorship with ''obliteration of the self'' as its official ideology, is a nonaligned kingmaker [[spoiler:and the ultimate winner of the Galactic War]]. Hundreds of minor powers are under the Big Three's yoke. All are more or less equally oppressive, and wages war only to pacify their internal populace.

* TheTheocracy: Numerous states are ruled by [[ChurchMilitant Church Militants]] - examples include the Greater Seidonian Protectorate, the Holy Dominion of Christendom - and worst of all, the Kang Gyala.

Eventually, three interstellar superpowers emerged from the ashes. The '''Coalition of Western Republics''', the Christian objectivist successor of the American and German Empires, wage constant war to impose ManifestDestiny across the galaxy. The '''Conseil of Workers' Systems''', a communist state that worship its leader as a living god, wage constant war with the capitalist Coalition. The '''United Technocracies of Man''', a textbook 1984 dictatorship with ''obliteration of the self'' as its official ideology, is a nonaligned kingmaker. Hundreds of minor powers are under the Big Three's yoke. All are more or less equally oppressive, and wages war only to pacify their internal populace.

* AIIsACrapshoot: AMNDA, an AI created to control a parallel United States' nuclear arsenal. [[spoiler: Created from the brain patterns of death row inmates and the clinically insane, she went insane and destroyed humanity. She then discovered the Vacuity, and used it to escape the heat death of her universe. Her hatred extends to ''every possible parallel humanity'', and destroying them all is her new personal mission. Entire universes are rebuilt into processors, and her subroutines have a knack of torturing the residents of worlds not outright destroyed for eternity in Matrix-style simulations - ForTheEvulz. She [[AGodAmI considers herself a god]] - and with the ability to collapse universes, who would say otherwise?]]

* AlternateUniverse: The Vacuity is the "ocean" surrounding bubbles that contain alternate worlds. [[spoiler: All three superpowers have the means to travel to alternate Earths through this dimension on a limited basis. Due to a 23rd century disaster which erased Pluto from existence and destroyed innumerable parallel dimensions, trueline forces can only visit limited "pocket universes" spanning a few dozen LY from Sol.]]