History Literature / ChaosTimeline

* ADegreeInUseless: Subverted. The German technocracy [[HardOnSoftScience generally scoffs at anyone studying humanities]], minimizing their teaching to a "harmless enough" level, afraid of the potentially rising threat of [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill pro-democratic freethinkers]]. Education in "hard sciences" and general blue collar vocational training is encouraged, supplemented by a BreadAndCircuses approach in state propaganda. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome ensues when one of the stories depicts a young couple smuggling banned philosophy books from German Atlantis to a [[CanadaEh somewhat more democratic neighbouring country]].

*** Also there is a real life Sally Kohn who is a [[http://sallykohn.com/ liberal commentator]] on Creator/{{Fox News|Channel}}.

* [[UnitedSpaceOfAmerica United Space of Germany]]: With a twist. Germany is THE superpower, comparable to our USA, and in their universe, there is a series of SF-novels (with a touch of technocracy government propaganda) named ''Ordo'', so it's safe to assume that their space is ruled by a German technocracy. (WordOfGod.)
%%* UnreliableNarrator: In several of the stories from the Chaos Timeline.

!! Contains examples of the following tropes:
Due to the versatile and lengthy nature of the storyline and its vulnerability to spoilers, tropes are denoted in thematic categories. Explanations given clickable right below.

[[labelnote:Alt/Hist]]We probably needn't explain what '''AlternateHistoryTropes''' are if you already ended up here, no?[[/labelnote]]
[[labelnote:General]]'''General Tropes''' denote tropes that don't belong to any other category.[[/labelnote]]
[[labelnote:Character]]'''Character Tropes''' are just that. Political leaders get described here just as well as the functional equivalents to your OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent.[[/labelnote]]
[[labelnote:Religion]]'''Religion Tropes''' were introduced to tidy up ambiguities towards other folders. ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin[[/labelnote]]
[[labelnote:Nat/Pol]]'''National And Political Tropes''' denote tropes about countries and politics, domestic and international alike including warfare and nation-building.[[/labelnote]]
[[labelnote:Modern]]'''Modern World Issues''' have been introduced as a folder because of the spoileriffic nature of many issues regarding the timeline's later 20th century when the timeline acquires a contemporary and even futuristic feel that hardly fits with the rest.[[/labelnote]]
[[labelnote:Shout]]'''Shout Outs''' are just that.[[/labelnote]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Alternate History Tropes]]

* AlternateHistory: Well, that's the point.

* ForWantOfANail: UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan dying from a minor accident in 1200 prevents the unification of the Mongol tribes and their subsequent global conquests.
* SlidingScaleOfAlternateHistoryPlausibility: Type II, best explained by the author [[http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Chaos at the Wikia entry page]].
* WhatIf the development of medieval Europe, the Islamic world and China wasn't hampered by the Mongol invasion known to our history?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:General Tropes]]

* CrossCulturalKerfluffle: "Atlantis" can refer to both Americas or the German part of the northern continent. Like "America" in our world, but even more {{JustForFun/egregious}}.

%%* Fan Nickname: One fan doesn't make a nickname!

* UnreliableNarrator: In several of the stories from the Chaos Timeline.

* YouHaveFailedMe: After the attack on the Summer Palace, the new Chinese emperor has several air controllers and airforce officers executed "for neglecting their duties".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Character Tropes]]
* AmbiguouslyGay: King Gioacchino of Italy and his successor, [[TheNapoleon Alessandro]] [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Napolione]].
* Creator/AynRand: Her equivalent in this TL (kind of) is Sophie Stein.
* TheCaligula: The fifth Chinese adoptive emperor, the protagonist of ''Samowar In Atlantis'' even calls him that way, "Kaiser Gaga". His precedessor was actually rumored to overthink his decision for succession, but got literally cut short by the events of 1993. And then it got worse.
* CloudCuckooLander: Humphrey VII/II of New Albion
* CunningLinguist: Tatjana speaks several languages, which is one reason why she does the communication at that one time.
* JustForFun/ExamplesOfMyersBriggsPersonalitiesInStories: Tatjana is ENFP
* {{Expy}}: Many of the famous historical personalities of this timeline are analogues of the ones of our lifetime. It's handled realistically though.
* FakeDefector: Walter Meier becomes head tribute collector for the French, making him perhaps the most hated man in occupied Germany. He's actually using the position to divert money to his favorite [[LaResistance German resistance organizations]].
* GeekPhysiques: Fynstr is slim, Tatjana is ''very'' slim, Topper is fat. And quite tall.
* GeneralFailure: Wolfgang Henrich at the German side, in this world's UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
* {{Goth}}: Tatjana. Well, the equivalent of.
* GranolaGirl: Their nicknames have a higher potential for being used as slurs than ours. ''Terramici'' (environmentalists) literally mean "friends/lovers of the earth" and ''Menschenhelfer'' (development aid workers) literally mean "man helpers" or "humanity's helpers".
* HeroicBSOD: All Logos (well, those whom we learn more about) seem to suffer from this at one point in their life. Fynstr has issues since [[YouKilledMyFather his childhood]], Topper lost many good countrymen at work, Tatjana becomes [[{{Goth}} outright melodramatic]] (though fully justified) in the end. But the mere exchange from campus to workplace [[GrowingUpSucks is often enough.]]
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: As a review of in-universe movie "Alexander" says, Oswald of Cottington only played a minor role in the (Great Occidental) war and never met Prince Alasdair in person.
* IHaveManyNames: Sophie Stein, aka Sofonisba Leoncavallo, aka Shayna Löwenpferd.
* JadeColoredGlasses: The elderly Fynstr. Also Topper for some years.
* KingOnHisDeathbed: King Gioacchino of Italy
* LadyOfWar: Or rather Lady of Diplomacy, Queen Kristina I of Sweden, forging an alliance against the French king.
* LipstickLesbian: The bisexual variant. Tatjana
* ManipulativeBastard / MagnificentBastard: Maffeo Servitore, of Florence. Also Alfred Kleiber, chancellor of [[{{Eagleland}} German Atlantis]]. And maybe Walter Meier. And the New Roman emperors.
* MeaningfulName: Sophie Stein, again. "Sophie Stein is the stone that breaks the steel of Socialist propaganda!"
* NaturalizedName: The woman born as Shayna Löwenpferd became Sofonisba Leoncavallo (the last name being a literal translation) in Greater Italy and Sophie Stein in Germany. Similar to Creator/AynRand.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** A great general who was born on an island west of Italy, fought in Egypt, became emperor and brought the church under his control was already mentioned.
** Matthias Lieber, one of those who translated the Bible into German, is a ShoutOut to Martin Luther. And at the same time, a ShoutOut to the RPG ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea''.
** Friedrich von Hohenzollern who might be UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat born in an Atlantean log cabin and successfully running away from his tyrannical father.
** Explorers / travellers Markus Poller and Mao Polou
** "Kingdom of God" is the counterpart to Thomas More's {{utopia}}n story, well, ''Utopia''.
** Condolcessa, last one of the Florentine ruling family, reminds of Lucrezia Borgia, at least in that people claim both to have committed ParentalIncest, though this hasn't to be true.
** "Christnacht" is a text about a rich but avaricious landowner, who isn't willing to share his wealth with others, until he is suddenly experiencing... something at the evening of christmas. And his name (Thimotheus) becomes synonymous with "miser". [[Literature/AChristmasCarol Sounds familiar?]]
** [[Film/LawrenceOfArabia Lauritz von Arguim]]. Also has a [[ComicStrip/CaptnCrazy brainless captain]].
** A technical genius who's a Swede from Finland inventing a codebreaker machine. (Linus Torvalds, anyone?)
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kraus Carlo Carosio of "La Fiamma"]]
** Canada has the presidents [[Creator/BenjaminFranklin Joseph B. Franklin]] and [[UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson Jacob Andrews]] (a war hero).
** Germany has a populist (from the left!) named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Strauss Josef F. Krause]] who suggests that his party should split to have more success with the voters: "Marching seperatedly, striking together!"
** A guy named [[ThoseWackyNazis Röhm]] unsuccessfully protesting race-mixing. He barely escapes unscathed.
* OneHeadTaller: Topper. He even dwarfs Tatjana, who's six feet tall.
* PlayfulHacker: The Logos. [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=439545&postcount=176 First mentioned here.]]
* PunnyName / BilingualBonus: About Sophie Stein nee Shayna Löwenpferd: "She roars like a lion, and is as smart as a horse!" [[note]]In Yiddish, "fert" / "horse" is an insult for stupid persons.[[/note]]
* FunPersonified: Tatjana, mostly, for puns.
* RoguishPoacher: During one story set in their UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
* StatuesqueStunner: Tatjana.
* WarriorPrince: Prince Alasdair, later king Alexander of Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia, ''and'' (shortly) elected king of Poland and Holy Roman Emperor.

* YouKilledMyFather: Rather like "You imprisoned my brother!"
* YoungConqueror: Prince Alasdair, natch.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Religion Tropes]]
* ChristianityIsCatholic: Other than in our world, Catholic Christianity didn't split except for some minor fringe movements, but power gradually shifted to the governments of the Catholic nations, somehow akin to the Anglican Church or Gallican Church in our world whose rituals and doctrine were mostly kept unchanged. In Nippon, the tenno is the head of the country's Catholic Church! UsefulNotes/ThePope was gradually reduced to a mere figurehead, but this changed unexpectedly again when he had to go to [[strike:Australia]] [[strike:Tirland]] [[OverlyLongGag Antipodia]] after the revolution in Britain.
** The nationalized and decentralized versions of Catholic Christianity are basically the Anglican Church and the concept of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallicanism Gallicanism]] from our real history, but taken up to eleven.
* FictionalHoliday: A CrypticBackgroundReference mentions that many countries introduced special national holidays. England, for example, has St George's day.
* InterfaithSmoothie: The Indian Chandramoorthy develops his own religion, which combines elements from Hinduism, Islam, Catholicism and the classical Greco-Roman religion.
* IrishPriest: Taken up to eleven, with the Irish-Catholic pope(s) from the land Down Under and their many missionaries, which are probably a trope of their own in this world.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:National and Political Tropes]]
* TheAlliance: Several times in this history. After all, it coined the term "anti-X War", as in "Anti-French War" and other wars, all of them ending with a victory of the alliance.
* AlternateHistoryWank: Many a SpaceFillingEmpire may fall into this category, but the three-continental German technocracy deserves special mention.
* BalanceOfPower: It's about world history, and patterns repeat.
* BalkanizeMe: North [[strike:America]] Atlantis, sometimes China, France and Russia.
* BlackShirt: The post-WWI Italian ''[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Fascisti]]''. A subversion, since they're actually the right hand of TheMafia analogue (the mafia of this history being an amalgam of both organized crime and Italian ultranationalism).
* BlessedWithSuck: The epically dramatic description of Germany in the 1920s.
* BreadAndCircuses: Part of the technocratic agenda in Germany is making the working class unpolitical by the [[GratuitousGerman titular "three F"]]: Fußball (soccer), Fernsehen (television), Fernreisen (vacation). One feels tempted to add a fourth F like Fressen (food).
* {{Cincinnatus}}: General Boulanger
* CulturePolice: In the German technocracy. Censors the book "Das Paradies der Goldis" by Katherine Geller (apparently a bit like ''Valley Of The Dolls'') for the depiction of mental diseases, drug addiction and lesbian love.
* ADegreeInUseless: Subverted. The German technocracy [[HardOnSoftScience generally scoffs at anyone studying humanities]], minimizing their teaching to a "harmless enough" level, afraid of the potentially rising threat of [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill pro-democratic freethinkers]]. Education in "hard sciences" and general blue collar vocational training is encouraged, supplemented by a BreadAndCircuses approach in state propaganda.\\\
SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome ensues when one of the stories depicts a young couple smuggling banned philosophy books from German Atlantis to a [[CanadaEh somewhat more democratic neighbouring country]].
* DirtyCommunists: Here, Socialists. They take over Britain in the mid-19th century and spread over all of Western Europe. [[AndZoidberg And Greece]].
* {{Eagleland}}: Speaking German. In both parts of [[strike:the Americas]] Atlantis. [[note]]Guess which ethnicity most Americans in our lifetime claim to hail from? Right, the Germans. Guess where else in the New World Germans liked to settle? Right, Southern Brazil and the Plata countries.[[/note]] And appropriately, this Germany has three eagles in its crest, among them a condor that got dubbed as an "Andean eagle" in this world.\\\
Even [[AlternateHistoryWank absorbs the old motherland]] at one point. Becomes a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything political]] [[UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic clusterfuck]] and quickly [[PuttingOnTheReich puts on the Reich]] as a so-called technocracy, [[WordOfGod a crossbreed]] of ''"Prussia, the GDR and the American military-industrial complex should it ever seize power."'' Not that [[BlackAndGreyMorality its]] [[TheMafia major]] [[MakeTheBearAngryAgain opponents]] were really [[CrapsackWorld more pleasant in this regard]].
* EasyLogistics: Commenters raised one or another eyebrow about transporting six- to seven-figure numbers of soldiers across the Atlantic in each direction during this world's UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The author responded that several factors like bigger navies on both sides [[note]]That of Italia Nuova '''alone''' was supposed to be bigger than that of the USA in our world.[[/note]] and improved technology would work it out, but also confessed that [[RuleOfCool there wouldn't be a world war in this world if it wouldn't]] because the odds were [[CurbStompBattle so one-sided in each half of the world]].
* TheEmpire: As this is a realistic (hi)story, it's a question of your POV. The New Roman Empire, the German technocracy and others might all qualify.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Kind of. While there are dictatorships, communists and fascists, secret polices, many wars, nukes and even worse weapons, this timeline has no equivalent of the Nazis and the Holocaust.
* [[NaziGold Fascist gold]]: A group of Red Pirates discovers it and decides to take off for Braseal instead of giving it back.
* FictionalPoliticalParty: Several are mentioned, in Germany, Russia and France.
** German Atlantis has two big ones, "The free ones" and "the equal ones", who nickname each other "the naked ones" and "the blind ones"[[note]]Implying that the latter are blind for reality, and naked shamelessness for the former[[/note]]
** There's also a "House Russia" party is this timeline. That's also a trend in our world. [[note]]In our world, Russia had an "Our House Russia" party late in TheNineties whose personell eventually gave way for "United Russia". In Israel, there's "Yisrael Beitenu" (Our House/Home Israel) that especially appeals to post-Soviet immigrants. And the Ukrainian party of Viktor Yushchenko was "Our Ukraine". [[EpilepticTrees Oh, and why has Poland a website called naszemiasto.pl ("our city") while Germany has meinestadt.de ("my city")?]][[/note]]
* ForeverWar: After Republican France occupies Spain, the fighting down there does not end until eighty years later.
* ImperialChina: Still exists even in the later 20th century, ruled by the so-called adoptive emperors.
* TheMafia: ''La Famiglia'', which seizes full political power in the Italian empire after it loses UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and its ruler is forced to abdicate. Also a subversion, since they're in fact a mixture of TheMafia and the [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly fascists]]. Note that in our world, the fascists and the mafia were enemies!
* ANaziByAnyOtherName
* NukeEm: The German technocracy nukes Verona (core Italy) and about a dozen Russian cities in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
* NuSpelling: The "Nu Inglish" used in Socialist Britain.
* OneWorldOrder: The German technocracy probably strives for it. [[spoiler:The Logos succeed instead.]]
* PenalColony: Braseal. Like our Australia, only even better. "Don't you wish that your grandfather had cursed the emperor?"
* PoliceState: After the German democracy falls, pretty much every major power on Earth is this.
* RedScare: The Socialist Block in Western Europe.
* TheRepublic: France, German Atlantis, Novorossiya (New Russia, our Siberia). And Greater Switzerland, of course. Oh, and (Greater) Judea.
* LaResistance: Various. Spaniards against Republican France, Germans against Russians and Italians, various against the Socialists.
* SlaveLiberation: Done by [[Film/LawrenceOfArabia Lauritz von Arguim.]]
* SpaceFillingEmpire: The New Roman Empire, Russia, the German technocracy. However, mostly avoided by introducing the eponymous "Chaos", vast areas of the world, esp. [[DarkestAfrica in Africa]], where the governments change every few months and borders every few years.
** [[SubvertedTrope Space Filling Chaos?]]
* SpyBot: The zanzara
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: The Rum-Seljuks are basically Ottoman Turks on steroids. And they keep the name "Seljuks" instead of Turks or Turkey to the modern day.
* [[UnitedSpaceOfAmerica United Space of Germany]]: With a twist. Germany is THE superpower, comparable to our USA, and in their universe, there is a series of SF-novels (with a touch of technocracy government propaganda) named ''Ordo'', so it's safe to assume that their space is ruled by a German technocracy. (WordOfGod.)
* VestigialEmpire: A lot of the old European monarchies end this way.
** New Rome, descending first into Greater Italy and eventually into five seperate Italian nations. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** The lands that once merged into the Union of the Old and New Russia eventually become, well, [[TitleDrop Russian Chaos]].
** The remaining British Empire's royal family flee to New Albion (New Zealand) after Britain turns republican it got worse and eventually socialist. A civil war over succession issues eventually rocks the country in the 1960s and effectively splits it in two, the South Island behind the resident CloudCuckooLander and the North Island behind a certain Elizabeth. (Not that Elizabeth, though.) Hoo boy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Modern World Issues]]
* ApocalypseHow: Here with [[GreyGoo nanomachines]], thus potentially Class X (planetary annihilation). And many locals vaguely expected it to happen for years.
* ArtificialIntelligence: AI plays an important part at the end.
* AuthorAppeal: AI, cybernetics
* {{Franchise/Barbie}}: Has an equivalent in the German toys line "Goldi".
* BrainComputerInterface
* CoolTrain: Vacuum maglevs which can reach speeds of no less than 10000 km/h!
* CyberPunk: The last about thirty years of the TL definitely have this vibe going on, courtesy of the Logos (hackers) and the more earlier achieved advanced state of computer technology and networks than in our history.
* {{Cyberspace}}
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** In 1993, Japanese [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters terrorists/freedom fighters]] crash a plane on the Chinese Summer Palace, killing the emperor.
** Greece is considered a highly corrupt Chaos country and a drain on the Socialist Block's power.
* ElectronicTelepathy: An important factor. Helped the Logos to form what is for all practical purposes a HiveMind [[spoiler:and later take over the world.]]
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: At the end, World War III between the superpowers Germany and China breaks out, and although it doesn't last long (actually a mere three hours), the world will never be again as it was before. [[spoiler: Because the [[strike:hackers]] Logos and their allied [=AIs=] take over the world and the military and tell the war off.]]
* EverythingIsOnline: Exploited big time at one occasion.
* FailedFutureForecast: In-universe at least for any work of fiction [[spoiler: done before the Logo and AI induced abortion of WorldWarIII but set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture.]]
** The sci-fi universe "Ordo" wherein Germany's OneWorldOrder has expanded to the stars some centuries into the future.
** A work of a Vlachian sci-fi author Mircea Savu who imagined an inter-galactic civilization with [[BalkanizeMe lots of independent states]].
* FantasticDrug: In the ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' adventure based on this, one dealer tries to sell the [=PCs=] the drug "black niig", which supposedly makes people feel "like Stalin [[note]]Not our UsefulNotes/JosephStalin, but still a bad guy[[/note]], when he [[GroinAttack crushed his enemies' balls]]", and later they meet a crazy fundamentalist Christian who claims he knew a girl who never listened to advice, took nanodrugs and one day literally fell apart to dust.
* FormerRegimePersonnel:\\
\\
The [[WordOfGod entry at GURPS wikia]] suggests a term for a whole caste of high-profile [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD victims]], "ex-leaders", the collateral damage of the outcome of the GrandFinale.\\
\\
[[spoiler:Effectively stripped of their former power, many of the people in leadership positions before the VelvetRevolution had their personal fortunes largely left intact, but still feel a void as a result of their loss of power. People obviously don't deal well with becoming [[FateWorseThanDeath obsolete over night]]. Alcoholism is said to be rampant among these guys.]]
* FutureSlang: Several examples. "By the Truth" comes to mind.
* GlobalCurrency: At the end of the story, the GEM (short for Geld-Einheit der Menschheit - "money unit of humanity") is introduced. The sign for it looks like a G with a circle around it, much like our @.
* GrandFinale: WorldWarIII, and the world being [[spoiler:taken over by the Logos and AIs]].
* HollywoodHacking: It involved ''a lot'' of hackers connected by a quasi-telepathic network, many of them in key positions, artificial intelligences willing to help them, and TranslationConvention for programming languages, but it's still handled more realistically than typical for Hollywood.
* InsideAComputerSystem: [=AIs=] are important, so expect this.
* TheInternetIsForPorn: "[...] some other place in the Weltsystem, where people can store their photos to keep them hidden. Recently a shadow of doubt was cast on said place by the users because of a claim that the owners of the place used compression programs to save on server storage, since most of the people just store identical 3D photos of nude women anyway..."
* LeetSpeak: The currency of the German technocracy is the Thaler, abbreviated "Th". Thus, people from this timeline will replace the T's in names of firms considered too greedy with Th. One example is the computer/electronics firm Werstand (imagine a cross between Microsoft, IBM and Siemens), which becomes Werst''h''and.
* Letters2Numbers: Wers(th)and
* MagicFloppyDisk: Averted, the present Chaos uses "data cubes", which are based on threedimensional computer chips.
* NamesGivenToComputers: Or rather, [=AIs=]. In fact, they name themselves after random strings - three of them are called X27, a_gcl and Horace. [[spoiler:And when they have to create database records for non-existing humans, they invent names for them which have some similarity to theirs.]]
* NanoMachines: Everywhere in the last years of the timeline.
* ParodiesForDummies: aka "[[SeriousBusiness The Rules]] for/to ______"
* RobotReligion: in-universe, a sci-fi author invents a religion based on binary logic.
* TheRuleOfFirstAdopters: "System-Sex" is definitely at the very short price list of the GURPS manual. And guess what people, being people, do with their robots in this world.
--> '''Fynstr:''' ''They beat up androids, just for fun, and have the most perverted sex with them - because they can!''
* SlidingScaleOfLibertarianismAndAuthoritarianism: Slided from authoritarianism-moderate to most libertarian on a global scale in the wake of its VelvetRevolution. Citing the [[WordOfGod entry at GURPS wikia]]:
-->''"The Logos rule a world population of about 5.5 billions - a bit lower than in Homeline at the same time. The CR is now at 2, a great difference for the people who were used to CRs of 4 or 5. Most taxes and other dues were abolished, except those on speculative profits (a world state can do effective controls), nanofactories, legal drugs and pollution. [...]"''
* SuccessionCrisis
* {{Utopia}}: What the Logos try to achieve after they save the world from WorldWarThree and impose a new, peaceful world order on the Earth. Your mileage may vary if they succeed, but flash forward fifty years [[spoiler:and there are [[JadeColoredGlasses people out there]] who think that world society has gone so wrong that [[DefectorFromDecadence they wish to leave it]] and live their ideals by [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere emigrating into space]].]]
* VelvetRevolution
* WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell: [[spoiler:The premise of ''Samowar In Atlantis'', if you replace "Communism fell" with "Logos striked".]]
* WorldWarIII: Appropriately at the end of the story.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Shout Outs]]
* Two German merchants, [[Literature/{{Buddenbrooks}} Herr Hagenström and Herr Buddenbrook]] talk about the emerging Atlantis business. A mijnheer [[ThemeNaming Arnoldsen]] from Amsterdam is also mentioned.
* The two first Dutch men who founded a colony in Atlantis are named Jan and Kees [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons van Houten]].
** And the first German guy there is a Hans Meier - the equivalent of John Smith.
* The German ''land'' Anderland is named after the best song by the German punk band Music/{{Fluchtweg}}.
* During one war story set in NW Germany of the 16th century, someone who's much like German comedian Otto Waalkes makes an appearance. (In fact, he uses ObfuscatingStupidity.)
* The two greatest authors of this world are the Spaniard Alejandro Enrique Ruiz Rodriguez, who wrote several plays about kings (of biblical Israel), whose works are suspected by some people to be written not by him, but really by the Spanish king, or his daughter, or someone completely else; and the German Albert Franck Baltzer, who wrote tragedies like ''[[Theatre/KingLear Der König von Leer]]'' about a Frisian yeoman and his daughters, or a jealous mercenary in ''[[Theatre/{{Othello}} Otto Leo]], genannt Der Schwarze von Verden'', which also were used for several [[strike:Hollywood]] Paradies movies.
* ImperialChina is at one point governed by [[Literature/InterestingTimes the Hong dynasty]].
* A satirist writing an obituary "Today our beloved UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire of the German Nation passed away at the great age of 911 years", almost the same as a text in our world.
* [[Literature/TheDraka Captain Ingolfsson]] and the Söderlinger in South Africa
* Russian general "Uncle" Popov (to an obscure German children's book by Creator/{{Janosch}}).
* Weber (this world's term for "Luddite") is a ShoutOut to a political poem by Gerhart Hauptmann about Silesian weavers.
* Ronaldo Servio (whose name doesn't remind you of Maffeo Servitore for nothing), [[Literature/GoneWithTheWind who's got the most terrible reputation all over Italia Nuova.]]
* "Keep your fingers off him, Consuela!" is a translated mondegreen of the German band FettesBrot.
* A German Jew named German Series/{{Seinfeld}} who complains that he's arrested for nothing.
* The way Ariel Ben-David got his name reminds of how a similar thing happened to Creator/EphraimKishon.
* The anti-slavery activist Lauritz von Arguim is played by a Georg Götzner - reminding of RL German actor Götz George.
* The firm Werstand refers to one German translation of ''Theatre/{{RUR}}'', where the titular firm was translated as this.
* The first technocratic government of Germany has a technocrat for police named [[Series/{{Tatort}} Schimanski]] and [[Series/YesMinister an experienced bureaucrat who is convinced he understands government work better than all of his chancellors]] named [[Magazine/{{MAD}} Alfred Neumann]].
* Two working class guys talking about stuff who sound very much like the Zomtec guys.
* One Tyrolean partisan in this world's UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, of all people, starting to channel Austrian fun rock band Music/ErsteAllgemeineVerunsicherung.
* [[Creator/CarlBarks Karl Beller]] is a very popular author of the German kids series "Theobald the Technician".
** Sally Kohn is a [[TokenMinority Token Israeli]] member of the gang in said series. [[note]]The name was deliberately chosen to redeem it. In our world, [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany The Nazis]] made a children's book with a Jewish {{scrappy}} bearing this very name. This world's Sally Kohn however is an accepted member of the group. Yes, the technocracy is a better dictature, at least in some ways, though still a dictature.[[/note]]
** Also there is a real life Sally Kohn who is a [[http://sallykohn.com/ liberal commentator]] on Creator/{{Fox News|Channel}}.
** The title of "Theobald the Technician" reminds a bit of the story Creator/EphraimKishon writes in-story about a sponge.
* [[FunWithAcronyms Taktische Spiele Regensburg]] is a producer of TabletopGames.
* The name of one of the first men on the moon is [[http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mrgorsky.asp Gorsky]].
* The Menschenhelfer scene was borrowed from the obscure book ''Schöne Grüße aus der Zukunft''
* A British professor advocates using more computer technology, to create a truly just society. His name is Kilian Houston, which were the middle names of Creator/JohnBrunner, author of the proto-{{Cyberpunk}} classic ''Literature/TheShockwaveRider''.
* Terramici are the environmentalists of this world - the same term used in ''Literature/DecadesOfDarkness''. Except for the fact that it's Latin-based in [=DoD=] and Italian-based in Chaos.
* Mokkers, the gang members of this timeline, have a similar name to the mukkers from ''Literature/StandOnZanzibar''.
* The Rasac (Japanese-influences group of radical sceptics - so radical, they even doubt logic and science) are a ShoutOut to a story by Heinrich Böll ([[InNameOnly in abbrev only]] - the other Rasacs are short for "Rasante Sadisten Capotas" - Rapid Sadists of [[{{Ruritania}} Capota]]]).
* There also seems to be a counterpart of Literature/{{Discworld}}.
* A Nipponese resistance group using a line from the ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' ThemeSong.
* The supreme technocrat Slezak is a ShoutOut to the prime minister of Creator/KurtVonnegut's story "Report on the Barnhouse effect".
* The last story begins deliberately similar as ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''.
* Russian WWII general and dictator Gridenkov is a ShoutOut to an older Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom timeline - ''Fire Eagle, Snow Bear'' - which had a Russian dictator Gridenko fighting Germany which won (our world's) UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Also, one of right hand man of this timeline's Gridenkov, a guy named [[BilingualBonus Belochvostikov]], is known as "Stalin, The Man of Steel" ([[SarcasmMode like a certain dude from our history about whom you might have heard of]]).
* Another timeline, "A Plethora of Princes", is also {{Title Drop}}ped, and its author Grey Wolf is hinted at.
* [[Tropers/{{Thande}} Technische Hochschule Argentinien/Neustadt für Delizierung und Eisenverarbeitung]]
* Other Members of Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom are also mentioned.
* There's even a ShoutOut to a defunct German AH forum, i.e. two members of it. Chamberlain, von Schleicher, in case you're reading this, this means you.
[[/folder]]

* TheMafia: ''La Famiglia'', which seizes full political power in the Italian empire after it loses UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and its ruler is forced to abdicate. Also a subversion, since they're in fact [[MixAndMatch a mixture]] of TheMafia and the [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly fascists]]. Note that in our world, the fascists and the mafia were enemies!

* StealthPun: The standard dictionary for German is called "Plassen" after its creator. In our world, you'd use the "Duden" instead. [[note]]"Tuten und Blasen", anyone?[[/note]]

* NotGoodWithPeople: Ignaz ''"Nazi"'' (Pun Intended) Schuhmann, [[SecretPolice security police]] officer working his shift on another continent [[AlternateHistoryWank of the German Reich]] in order to eventually get promoted. Got increasingly fed up with its inhabitants, thinking that their mentalities make excellent BalkanizeMe fodder that the DirtyCommunists in Brussels would thankfully like to swallow up.

* LipstickLesbian: The bisexual variant. [[MatzoFever Tatjana]]

* RuthlessModernPirates: The modern Red Pirates of the Socialist Block, robbing ships of the capitalist nations. And also Nipponese terrorists doing this, who are [[KillEmAll even]] [[GroinAttack worse]].

* AwesomeMcCoolname: There are some German princes (and other guys) named Kraft, which means "power / strength". Yes, this once was a real first name in Germany.

** The nationalized and decentralized versions of Catholic Christianity are basically the Anglican Church and the concept of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallicanism Gallicanism]] from our real history, but taken UpToEleven.

* IrishPriest: Taken UpToEleven, with the Irish-Catholic pope(s) from the land Down Under and their many missionaries, which are probably a trope of their own in this world.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

It has managed to get its own fanfiction work called ''Fanfic/SamowarInAtlantis''.

[[labelnote:General]]'''General Tropes''' denote tropes that don't belong to any other category. This folder is also sub-structured into LanguageTropes that didn't get its own folder for the sake of clarity.[[/labelnote]]

* BaitAndSwitch: A pretty big one. See WhamEpisode.

* DontAsk: In an in-universe joke.

* LanguageTropes
** BilingualBonus: [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=617180&postcount=240 Topper muses]] that every story ends eventually, but history goes on. Both story and history mean "Geschichte" in German.
** CallARabbitASmeerp: Justified, since history diverged in 1200 and people could well invent different names for things. America is called ''Atlantis'', teddy bears are ''mishkas'' since they were invented in Russia, computer hackers are ''Logos'' (from 'logic'), ''{{angst}}'' is called ''horreur'', a blitzkrieg is a ''molniya'' (Russian for 'lightning'), tanks are ''Walzen'' ('steamrollers' in German), capitalism is ''monetarism'' etc.
*** A pretty complete list of the TL's alternate terminology can be found on [[http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/alternate_history/alternate_terminology these]] [[http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/alternate_history/alternate_geographic_names pages]] of AH.com's wiki.
** GratuitousGerman: Germany is a superpower at the end, so don't be too astonished to find a bit of it. For example, virtual worlds are called ''Märchenwelten'' - {{fairytale}} worlds.
** GratuitousItalian: In the late years of the TL, there are artificial insects (flying nanotech robots) called ''Zanzara''. Also, the Renaissance is known under the Italian term ''Rinascita'' in this history, rather than the French term from our history.
** GratuitousRussian: Brought this world, among others, the synonyms to teddy bear and blitzkrieg. Generally, German is the number one world language, with Italian and Russian being respective second and third.
** LanguageEqualsThought: One in-story novel mentions the people in the world AfterTheEnd having become unable to lie - but unfortunately, they also lost the ability to imagine things.
* {{Manga}} / {{Manhua}}: Not of this story, but in this story. They mostly come from China and are called "Wan Tu", meaning "ten-thousand pictures".

* The two first Dutch men who founded a colony in Atlantis are named Jan and Kees [[TheSimpsons van Houten]].

* "Keep your fingers off him, Consuela!" is a translated {{Mondegreen}} of the German band FettesBrot.

%%* FanNickname: One fan doesn't make a nickname!

-->''"The Logos rule a world population of about 5.5 billions - a bit lower than in Homeline at the same time. The CR is now at 2, [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp a great difference for the people who were used to CRs of 4 or 5.]] Most taxes and other dues were abolished, except those on speculative profits (a world state can do effective controls), nanofactories, legal drugs and pollution. [...]"''

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: In-universe at least for any work of fiction [[spoiler: done before the Logo and AI induced abortion of WorldWarIII but set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture.]]
** The sci-fi universe "Ordo" wherein Germany's OneWorldOrder has expanded to the stars some centuries into the future.
** Another example would be a work of a Vlachian sci-fi author Mircea Savu who imagined an inter-galactic civilization with [[BalkanizeMe lots of independent states]].

RealityEnsues when one of the stories depicts a young couple smuggling banned philosophy books from German Atlantis to a [[CanadaEh somewhat more democratic neighbouring country]].

This AlternateHistory timeline published at Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom is described by its author @/MaxSinister as "the Mount Everest of AH". It starts with the death of Genghis Khan in 1200 (thus preventing the Mongol conquest of Russia, China and Persia) and goes until the year 1993. History changes ''[[ButterflyOfDoom a lot]]'' compared to our world, [[{{Applicability}} although some patterns seem to reappear]].

** GratuitousGerman: Germany is a superpower at the end, so don't be too astonished to find a bit of it. For example, VirtualWorlds are called ''Märchenwelten'' - {{fairytale}} worlds.

* ImperialChina is at one point governed by [[Discworld/InterestingTimes the Hong dynasty]].

* Terramici are the environmentalists of this world - the same term used in ''Literature/DecadesOfDarkness''. Except for the fact that it's Latin-based in DoD and Italian-based in Chaos.

* [[LipstickLesbian Lipstick Bisexual]]: [[MatzoFever Tatjana]]

* [[FunPersonified Pun Personified]]: Tatjana, mostly.

* [[spoiler:[[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell Why We're Bummed The Logos Striked]]]]: The premise of ''Samowar In Atlantis''

* ForDummies: aka "[[SeriousBusiness The Rules]] for/to ______"

* CrossCulturalKerfluffle: "Atlantis" can refer to both Americas or the German part of the northern continent. Like "America" in our world, but even more {{egregious}}.

* GermanDialects: Fynstr uses a few Swiss German words. Also, the background of the story speculates a bit about the development of the German language, if the Dutch hadn't left Germany, and if there had been a big German-speaking state in North America (with English, Scandinavian and Slavic influences).