Post by eurofed on Jun 25, 2016 16:29:05 GMT
An agent with exceptional (supernatural or sci-fi) resources decides WWII was not anywhere close to a fair fight given the superior resources of the Allies and the self-inflicted limits the Axis suffered, so it takes steps to redress the balance. It may be a alien being with godlike powers or a group of future time-travelers with advanced tech that like the Axis powers for aesthetic or political reasons. They are amoral but practical about their goals, so they only care about the consequences of an Axis victory insofar as such effects would get in the way of making the Axis powers as strong, efficient, and prosperous as possible.
By means of their exceptional abilities and covert interference with the timeline, they pick a group of potential (or actual) leaders of Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1920s and rewrite their entire psyches to make them fit their goal of creating an optimized Axis. They also manipulate events to ensure these people shall surely become unquestioned leaders of their nations by the early 1930s. The new Axis leaders get an imperative to accomplish the following policy goals, in order of priority:
1) Germany and Italy have to annex all the territories they may have meaningful ethnic, historical, economic, or strategic claims upon (except for the ones that would drive them into mutual hostility) and they can realistically assimilate by any means. They also have to establish their empires in northern Europe and the Mediterranean region respectively, and cooperate to create a superpower Pan-European hegemony they would lead jointly. Japan has to annex all the economically or strategically valuable territories in Northeastern Asia that it would be realistically able to assimilate by any means, establish its empire in eastern Asia, and make it into a superpower.
2) The Axis powers have to defeat and neutralize any possible opposition of Britain, Russia, and America to their goals, and eliminate the British Empire and the USSR as potentially hostile great powers. Any significant domestic or external threat to their rule must be dealt with in order to make their imperial rule and superpower status seemingly stable for the foreseeable future.
3) The Axis powers have to make themselves as technologically advanced and economically developed as possible, grant their loyal citizens the highest living standards feasible, enact adequate and competent care of the environment, and pursue space colonization to the best of their ability.
In order to accomplish these ambitious goals, the godlike alien entity or future time-travelers bestow the new Axis leaders the following advantages:
a) Infallible statesman intuition. They always pick the most objectively beneficial option among the realistically available choices on the table as it concerns military doctrines, weapon programs, economic policy, scientific research, diplomacy, domestic policies, and grand strategy. They don’t necessarily gain any exceptional specialist expertise, but they get a very well-educated layman’s knowledge base in any field relevant to their role, and can always choose the best option in the available advice of experts. Such insight gradually expands over time to match ongoing scientific progress and changing circumstances.
b) Optimal strategic integration. They coordinate their strategic choices and economic cooperation with their allies to the best of their abilities and share their weapon and civilian research programs to bring each partner to the best military and technological standard that is available within the alliance.
c) Optimal resource use. They become aware of any useful natural resource that is available with current technology within their own territory and the lands of their allies, clients, and friendly trade partners. Such knowledge gradually expands over time to include new resources that become accessible because of conquest or technological progress.
d) Pragmatic villainy. They are unable to enact any policy of indiscriminate or gratuitous brutality that would be counterproductive to their own goals, such as persecuting loyal and useful minorities for ideological reasons. However they are allowed and even encouraged to any use of violence and coercion that would be practical for their objectives, such as ruthless and efficient destruction of diehard enemies.
e) Live long and prosper. They gain excellent health and a very long lifespan to the best of human potential with slow, graceful aging.
The godlike alien entity or future time-travelers keep their manipulations hidden to everyone. The Axis leaders themselves and their followers tend to assume their choices are self-determined and an effect of their own brilliance. To the rest of the world it looks like Germany, Italy, and Japan got exceptionally talented and foresighted leaders since the early 1930s, on par with the best statesmen in history. The agent(s) that covertly enact this change do not care much about the ideological details of the political regimes the Axis leaders shall set up. However they generally expect the leaders shall become benevolent dictators with a robust expansionist, imperialist, militarist, and technocratic streak.
How do you think the buildup, course, outcome, and aftermath to WWII would turn out different ?
