u/gizmomogwai1

I don't know how many people remember, but after September 11 internet emails had gone viral about the Halloween Mall Attack Rumor.

>Hi All -I think you all know that I don't send out hoaxes and don't do the reactionary thing and send out anything that crosses my path. This one, however, is a friend of a friend and I've given it enough credibility in mymind that I'm writing it up and sending it out to all of you.

>My friend's friend was dating a guy from Afghanistan up until a month ago. She had a date with him around 9/6 and was stood up. She was understandably upset and went to his home to find it completely emptied. On 9/10, she received a letter from her boyfriend explaining that he wished he could tell her why he had left and that he was sorry it had to be like that. The part worth mentioning is that he BEGGED her not to get on any commercial airlines on 9/11 and to not to go any malls on Halloween. As soon as everything happened on the 11th, she called the FBI and has since turned over the letter.

>This is not an email that I've received and decided to pass on. This came from a phone conversation with a long-time friend of mine last night.

>I may be wrong, and I hope I am. However, with one of his warnings being correct and devastating, I'm not willing to take the chance on the second and wanted to make sure that people I cared about had the same information that I did. 

• The point of divergence here is the Bolsheviks losing the Russian Civil War in 1922, following a breakdown in their organization (including Lenin's assassination in 1921) and the loss of former-Imperial officers.
• Violent persecutions of Russian leftists follow. Large numbers of refugees leave Russia, with many ending up in Germany.
• The German left, observing the violence, chooses to band together.  The Communist Party of Germany already had 350–400,000 members in 1920; these numbers are strengthened with the leftist coalition and Russian refugees.
• The German October of 1923 thus goes differently.
• No support from a Soviet Union means Mongolia stays with China
• No Nazi invasion of France means the Third French Republic isn't violently overthrown in 1940. If the Third Republic ever ends, it's by internal constitutional reform similar to 1958.
• The Low Countries can stay neutral for most of the war (just as the Netherlands did in WWI), but sign the Declaration by United Nations as a symbolic gesture 1944-45. With UK backing, Swedish neutrality goes out the window early due to the threat from the east and strikes from occupied regions of Finland.
• With UK support, the Baltic states are re-established as independent countries after WWII, similar to Finland.

One of the most undeveloped characters in a role where you'd think there'd be more development. Perfectly understandable because there's only so much you can fit in 20 minutes, and Marge in Chains is bursting at the seams with great material, including some of Lionel Hutz' best stuff. Still, who is Phillips?

We know she killed her husband with a Phillips head screwdriver. Unwelcome news for Marge as a cellmate. But we never actually learned all the details. It could have been first-degree murder. It could have also started as self-defence, and the reason she's in prison is because it escalated to excessive force. I'm not sure what to make about her dating Barney at the end, in terms of what that means for her in prison. If she's expecting to get out soon, then she's not serving life, making it more likely she didn't commit first-degree murder. On the other hand, it could be a prison romance only. Her comment before revealing her boyfriend to Marge is that "Men are such slime." Where did she get that attitude? Did someone hurt her? Her husband, maybe?

• After World War I and the Irish War of Independence, history begins to diverge in the Irish Civil War, which sees the Irish republicans raising larger numbers, using more unconventional warfare and inflicting defeats on the Irish Free State. The UK intervenes in 1925, but comes too late with too little and loses Ulster. The United Kingdom goes back to being the Kingdom of Great Britain, for the next 10 years.
• Inspired by Irish terror tactics from the civil war, German paramilitaries choose to commit assassinations and terrorist attacks against the Weimar Republic and its civilians during the crisis of 1923. A member of one of the extremist parties (the NSDAP), Adolf Hitler, participates in the attack on Munich. The operation backfires horrendously on the NSDAP and similar parties, ultimately resulting in their downfall.
• Following the 1930 Salt March in India, the British, hoping to avoid a repeat of Ireland in the jewel of the British Empire, have Mohandas Gandhi assassinated. The murder backfires, sparking outrage across India and a fierce and massive revolt, overwhelming British forces there. After a grand retreat from the subcontinent, Great Britain starts to rearm while an extremist ideology called Angevinism develops.
• With the British at an all-time low in morale due to the defeats and Great Depression, King George V is assassinated. Edward VIII takes the throne early; Wallis Simpson, on a trip back to the US in the early 1930s, is arrested on suspicion of spying for the British, removing the possibility of her marriage to Edward.
• During World War II, the British don't actually make it back to India, being tied up in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. However, India joins with France on the Allies, as the two pledge mutual defence for India and French Indochina against Japan, which renewed its alliance with the British. The US joins the Allies in 1941 after a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.
• Italy joins the Axis but is knocked out in 1943 when the Germans and Austrians, seeking to scratch the "soft underbelly," attack from the north, causing the king to dismiss Mussolini.
• American and German scientists, exchanging research, make progress on an atom bomb, which comes too late for the war in Europe, but becomes ready for Japan.

• The point of divergence here might very well be April 14, 1865, where John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy goes better, as not only Lincoln dies, but William Seward dies of his stab wounds. At any rate, the US passes on buying Russian America/Alaska in 1867
• In the 1890s, gold is discovered in Russian America, causing Russia to encourage settlement of the region to mine its resources, increasing its population. Russian traders regularly interact with Canadians in the Arctic and Western Canada, and some Russians emigrate to Canada, forming cultural ties between Canada and Russia
• In 1898, the US wins the Spanish-American War. With no Alaska, the Americans focus on settling Cuba (the 49th state in 1959)
• In 1917, Lenin elevates Russian America to the Alaskan Soviet Socialist Republic
• The Progressive Movement takes off in the Prairies in the 1920s, similar to how it did OTL (despite the region's conservative image today); however, Russian influence gives it a more radical flavour
• The Great Depression hits hard and Prime Minister RB Bennett's neglect and obliviousness stirs rage. Progressives, the Labour movement and radicals unite under Tim Buck's Socialist Party (the renamed Communist Party), which becomes mainstream and forms government in 1933
• In 1935, Buck declares an independent Republic of Canada, replacing the Dominion of Canada. It controls all Canada except Newfoundland (and Labrador), then under British Commission of Government. In 1943 the Republic of Canada is rebranded as the Socialist Federal Republic of Canada. From 1943 to 1948 it still controls all Canada except Newfoundland (and Labrador).
• In 1948, the Americans and British meddle in provincial elections in Ontario and Quebec in 1948, aiding in the election of Buck's opponents and getting George Drew and Maurice Duplessis elected as provincial presidents. Ontario and Quebec are very briefly declared independent from the Socialist Federal Republic before banding together as the new Dominion of Canada. It gains Newfoundland (and Labrador) in 1949
• The Socialist Federal Republic controls only the west and north in 1948 to 1949. Buck, smarting from the loss of his home province Ontario, enacts a new constitution in 1949 establishing the Canadian Democratic Republic. The CDR is unitary; the old western provinces and territories become administrative divisions, or arms of the CDR central government. The Canadian Democratic Republic is not actually democratic
• East Canada is not perfectly democratic, becoming a borderline one-party state as the federal Conservatives embark on 40 years in power (1948-1988). The federal Conservatives let Duplessis' authoritarian-style provincial government control Quebec while the Conservatives focus on ruling the rest of the dominion

So the idea to this: Before the North-West Rebellion (1885), Louis Riel had been invited to Saskatchewan not only by the Metis, who rebelled, but also white settlers. The problem was that Riel was suffering from schizophrenia, and brought with him some weird fanatical ideas about establishing a new religion of Canadian Catholicism, with a pope in Montreal. (He was also calling himself Louis David Riel - that wasn't his baptized name, but "David" was what the voices called him). The whites abandoned him in droves, leaving only the Metis and some First Nations tribes for the revolt.

So for this scenario, I subtracted Riel's mental illnesses and religious extremism, but left his messianic style of leadership. He probably also didn't kill Thomas Scott during the Red River Rebellion in 1870, as that earned him a lot of hate from white English-speaking Protestants. (Who knows, maybe these go hand in hand - guilt over Scott's death triggered a decline in his mental health?). For good measure, I subtracted Honore Jackson's mental illnesses, but kept Amor de Cosmos ("lover of the universe") as the colourful, eccentric character he was.

A word of explanation on the final, October Crisis slide - this is based on three separate OTL events, the 1969 White Paper, the 1970 October Crisis, and the 1990 Oka Crisis. Of the 11 slides in my Canadian Civil War series, this is the only one that features some fictional characters. Alan Gabriel would be this timeline's version of the OTL Mohawk spokeswoman Ellen Gabriel. Paul Red and Jack Red are this timeline's equivalent of OTL Quebec terrorists Paul Rose and Jacques Rose. And hostage Peter Gates is a loose translation of OTL hostage Pierre Laporte.