I have no intention to start a flame war or racism of any kind. I'm working on a fic that takes place in post-war USA 1953 in an Alternate World where the Equestrians and humans had coexistence since the beginning of time. Ponies, Griffins etc. had migrated across the world, adopting both faiths and mannerisms of their respective nations. Equestria is a continent between the Americas and Europe.

So my question is, go back to 1945, World War II. We know of Hitler's racial policies and the Jewish Holocaust, and that anyone who doesn't conform to the Aryan Master Race is considered sub human and unworthy. How do you think that applies to the ponies living in Nazi Germany at the time? Will they also be part of the Reich or will they be oppressed and ethnically cleaned the same way the Nazis did the Jews?

What are you thoughts on it?

5618283 I'd definitly say that Hitler would have cleaned the Reich from Ponies and would have tried to somehow exploit, steal or use their magic for his own cause. Jews in the third Reich were already used to experiment on so I definitly think Ponies would be experiencing the same

5618290 I second that.

5618283
You could also use some ties with the Thule Society and expand on the occult side of the Third Reich. What if they were trying to harness the power of Tartarus or unleash DIscord?

5618334

To be fair, a lot of alternate history relies on In Spite of a Nail, where specific events - and people - still exist the way they did in real life despite massive changes to the timeline. Otherwise, alternate history would inevitably deal with a bunch of fictional historical figures, and it'd be a lot less fun.

5618283
Well, there's a good deal more detail to add in but I'd love to help with that too. For me, in the main question, it's hard to say.

One has to remember that anti-Semitism was not new, and fairly common and accepted. To keep it short, back when Hitler was rejected from art school, the mayor of Vienna ran on a policy of blaming Jews recently arrived from Russia on the nation's problems, one Hitler took up. That was was really started his journey to the Holocaust.

I suppose it really depends on the pony's history with humans. Hitler's main anger was against Jews and Slavs, though needless to say others were tossed in. He spoke lowly of blacks, was unsure of Asians, didn't like Christians too much, called Americans mongrels, etc. while others like the Nords and general people like the French were ok, the Anglo-Saxon British he actually genetically saw as cousins a bit. Assuming his thousand-year Reich did encompass the world there's no doubt he would've tried to kill his way down, but that would've taken that long.

In the end it really depends on the history but I'd say they'd be on the list later down the line. Not likely to be thrown in during the war years but not quite Aryan either.

5618283 With ponies being around, it completely changes the dynamic of Human Politics. You can't say with 100% certainty that Hitler would have even risen to power or the vital events (WWI) that led to his appeal with the masses, could have occurred in the same fashion. I'm simply warning you that if you do decide to write something like this, people will criticize you for it. The historical events are simply too complex to really flesh out, unless you have a very well researched plan for explaining the AU.

5618283
One thing that needs to be added to the mix is magic.
In Equestria, magic is accepted as a everyday thing.

In human history, there have been witchhunts, burning witches, etc.
Since humans and ponies have coexisted from the beginning, how does magic fit in?

You have one land in which the inhabitants are okay with and live with magic vs lands of
humans in which magic is treated as an unreal thing.
Except for certain groups.
This also begs the question, does the timeline even resemble ours even?

Would world war 2 been also fought with magic?

5618283

I think this is a story you should not even bother with. I'm not saying that with regards to any great ambitions you might have, since any idea can be turned into a great story, but this will just beg people to come and flame it, or be interested purely because "it's one of those fics." You know, the kind that mixes *insert controversial real life subject here* with ponies?

Once you start a fic like this, whatever you do, most people will only look at it as something to bash, or to just look at as yet another bizarre phenomenon. Very few people would actually care about the other aspects, much less take it seriously.

5618283
Could go either way. Nazi Germany was famously close to Japan and treated them as "the Aryans of the East." Not quite the same, but basically near equals. Nazi racial policy was nearly entirely centered around antisemitism and various kinds of hatred towards minorities, the kind of people nobody in wider society knows anything about except that they exist, but that you can make into an easy targets to rally the local human garbage to your side.

In a multi-species rather than multi-ethnic Germany of the time, it's completely up in the air how that would go down. You have free hand there. For all I know, unicorns could have helped Germany win World War 1 and the treaty of Versailles never happened, so there is no widespread discontent for Hitler types to capitalize on in the first place.

5618412

this will just beg people to come and flame it, or be interested purely because "it's one of those fics." You know, the kind that mixes *insert controversial real life subject here* with ponies?

All of this is basically true regardless, though.

5618283
My knee jerk reaction was to say they would have been persecuted like the other non-Aryans in Germany, but it's also possible his idea of an ethnically pure Germany could have been multi-racial. If there was some Equestrian race or ethnicity that had historical ties to the German people and culture, it's possible they would have been included. It could kind of go either way on that issue.

5618283 Your AU is a LOT more complicated than you think. You can't just go back to 1945, you have to go back to WWI. Was Equestria neutral? How did the ponies treat convoys trying to cross the Atlantic? Could Allied freighters expect safe harbor in Equestrian waters? Could German U-boats? Could the Bismark have survived if it reached Equestria before the Allies sank it? How the ponies conducted themselves during WWI will have a huge effect on how they're treated in WWII.

Starting about in 1938 all unicorns in Germany would have been "confined for the good of the state" and become part of Himmler's private little herd (perhaps confined near Wewelsberg Castle). Himmler was nucking futz when it came to the occult, and he'd find magical unicorns irresistible (Hitler himself was really just an occult buff at most, but he was very much influenced by Himmler). Earth ponies with "magic" (such as Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich) would also be of interest.
Celestia wouldn't stand for this. So, would Germany try to appease Equestia and free their ponies (for a few more years, anyway) or would Equestria be the first power to go to war? And would any other power be drawn in early? This, again, would go back to WWI and how friendly Equestria and the Allies are.

How do your time lines square up? Has Luna returned from the moon, or does that not happen until 2010? Have the Mane 6 even been born yet?

I have more, but I'll quit now before I get all TL:DR. You have some serious world building to think about.

5618450

Celestia wouldn't stand for this.

And presumably not exist, along with Luna, or at least not have more than a fraction of the displayed capabilities she has in the show. A worldly ruler who is thousands of years old and factually manipulates the course of day and night? There would be no Germany or America or anything else to even have these wars to begin with. There would be The Glorious and Eternal Empire of the Holy Celestial Empresses. Full stop.

Real empires have been ruled in the name of god-kings who had much less demonstrable existence or power than that.

Oh, to see Harry Turtledove take this concept and run with it.

He did it with an alien invasion, and went on to five or six really thick books.

I can see JFK making the announcement in his famous Luna address:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him and Princess Luna safely to the earth.

Bigoted politics attack the most different and work their way inwards. The Ponies and Griffins would be the enemy to be dealt with before anyone bothered pointing at the Jews (though they may well have eventually gotten there). You'd have to add a couple lines to the beginning of Niemoller's Lament. "First they came for the Ponies...."

5618283 You know, there's a good chunk of potential in the alternate history here, although I'd nix the "Celestia raises the sun and moon" idea and replace it with a little Ra the Sun God meme as being revered for doing it, even though she doesn't, and can't get her ponies to stop crediting her for it.

You could start with a small colony of earth ponies who returned with Leif Erickson and lived in Iceland until disease and warfare wiped them out. Later, in the era of Christopher Columbus, a loose pegasus named Corrigan is blown by a storm into Spain/Portugal, taken to Isabella and Ferdinand's court, and eventually (darned language) reveals the location of the Equestrian homeland, an island about the size of Ohio in the middle of the Atlantic. (Because seriously, that's as big as it needs to be.) Columbus gets funding to take the wayward explorer home (and also check to see if their island can be used as a base for further exploration in the direction of the Far East, because sailing ships work best when they can stop to resupply every so often) You can segue into the various world powers deciding to nip off little chunks of the Equestrian Principality and the sharp nips that get delivered in return as Celestia attempts to remain neutral despite it all. Then The War To End All Wars where neutrality can no longer be maintained, and the amazingly popular sequel in which Unicorn translation spells make hash out of the German ULTRA codes and U-boat assaults are repulsed by pegasus patrols.

"No signs of allied patrols. All clear with a moonless night. Perfect hunting weather." The captain of U-79 rotated the periscope around one more time just to be sure and opened up his mouth to give the command to surface and recharge the batteries, only to jump back with a muffled curse.

"Captain?" The first officer did not leave his post, with his thumb over the intercom button ready to give the expected command, but he did eye Captain Hermann rather suspiciously. "Is it a patrol? Should we dive?"

The captain took a moment to catch his breath before walking deliberately up to the periscope and taking another look. This time, the huge yellow eye which had been looking back was not present, but there was a placard being held in front of the periscope lens.

"There's a pegasus holding a sign in front of the periscope," he explained. "U-79, you are in violation of the Equestrian neutrality zone. You are ordered to surface and surrender your vessel or..." He broke off as the periscope gave a distinctive rattle, much as if a necklace with an attached remote-control thaumaturgic bomb on it had just been looped over the pipe and slid down to rest right above his head.

Going with the "ponies are inexplicably overpowered and win at everything" meme can only make this idea even worse, not better.

5618463 But without Celestia to protect them there wouldn't be a population of ponies left in Europe, they'd have been driven to extinction during the Protestant Reformation. Every unicorn would have either fled back to Equestria or been burned at the stake along with the witches.

Actually, ponies might have been scattered during the Roman Empire. Nero would have blamed ponies for the burning of Rome instead of the Christians.

5618558
That period of history is ridiculously misrepresented and wasn't nearly as bad as it's commonly made out to be. Over a hundred-year period, less than 30,000 people were actually killed in all of Europe collectively - and nearly-universally by secular rulers, not ecclesial ones. The church was far too busy rooting out heretics and schismatics to persecute people for magical powers that proper Christian doctrine holds the devil isn't actually capable of granting you to begin with. That's not enough to wipe out a thriving species, or even make a meaningful dent into it.

5618570 *bows with respect* I yield the point. Your history-fu is clearly superior to mine.

5618283 I doubt he would clense ponies. They wouldn't threaten his vision, as they can't breed with humans. Same reason he didn't clense dogs, or horses . In fact, he most likely would have used them for war. Unicorns, Earth ponies, and pegasi would have been a game changer. He might have won the war. Ponies are just like humans in thoughts, so if they were raised up in Nazi Germany they would be just as likely, or more likely given they weren't likely to be targeted to be killed, as humans.

5618570
To add to this: the medieval world was almost shockingly pragmatic.

There's an illustrative episode in which Islamic raiders sailed up the river Tiber in an attempt to sack Rome for the glory of Allah and also their personal finances. But it went horribly wrong and a bunch of them got left behind and were at the mercy of the very people whose religious center they had been caught red-handed trying to destroy.

Despite everything you would probably expect from this scenario, they lived to ripe old ages (by medieval standards). They made a deal whereby they converted to Christianity and were allowed to settle a new town up in the mountains. You know, rather than being slaughtered, burned at the stake, or enslaved.

5618719

To add to this: the medieval world was almost shockingly pragmatic.

The people of the past tended to be as a general rule. The past we think happened and the past that actually happened often don't have a lot to do with each other. There's a rather famous painting from Prussia-era Germany of a black African German military musician cuddling with his very white, very well-to-do-heiress German wife.

People weren't nearly as stuck up and boneheaded as people attribute to them.

5618283

Hitler was a vegetarian and would apparently give graphic accounts of animal slaughter to convince his guests to become vegetarian, and apparently Nazi Germany was very keen on animal welfare with top officials like Goebbels, Göring and Himmler being keen animal lovers. I doubt Nazi Germany would treat ponies, griffons or even dragons badly.

If Hitler ever conquered Equestria, I imagine the Nazis would treat them exactly like they did with the Danes. During World War II, the Danes kept their King and Parliament. When the Nazis wanted to round up all the Danish Jews, the Danes flat out refused and the Nazis couldn't do much about it.

Any story regarding Hitler taking over Equestria would read like a ponification of the Nazi Occupation of Denmark.

However, two of your statements throw a huge spanner in the works:

1. Equestrians and humans had coexistence since the beginning of time.

2.Equestria is a continent between the Americas and Europe.

Both of these points means there's no telling what kind of route history would take. Equestria being its own mid-Atlantic continent would completely alter oceanic currents and weather patterns. It would alter the discovery of the Americas. And since the beginning of time?

Imagine Napoleon with flight capabilities. He is pivotal to the face of the Modern Day World. He practically destroyed the Holy Roman Empire; with them out of the picture, he paved the way for the formation of modern Germany. His invasion of Spain and Portugal hastened the disintegration of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in Latin America. His Civil Code is the foundation of many laws in modern day Europe. He's the reason most of Europe is using the metric system.

Could he have conquered Russia with ponies, griffons and dragons? Who knows? We know that his troops would have never starved to death in the Russian winter, though. The British also wouldn't have been able to strand him in Egypt.

In our timeline, after he was defeated, the European monarchies exiled him to Elba, off the coast of Italy. He escaped a year later, raised his army, took back control of France, but only lasted 100 or so days because every nation was out to get him. Then they exiled him to St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean where he died from ill health.

Now imagine some of his supporters can fly. They fly to St Helena, bring him back to France and he raises his army yet again and seizes control of France yet again. Why don't they kill Napoleon? He was too popular at the time. Napoleon only had to walk back into France and all his old soldiers went back to serving him.

In a pony universe, Napoleon would become some sort of supervillain. Maybe after escaping St Helena, they defeat him again and Celestia exiles him to the Moon.

Then he comes back with Nightmare Moon and has yet another go!

5618784

I doubt Nazi Germany would treat ponies, griffons or even dragons badly.

"Would" is always a bad phrasing. There is no telling what the Nazis would have done, much like there is no telling what the Church would have done about unicorn magic.

You can make a convincing argument for what could have happened, though, and in that sense, it serves much better. It is best to word things in those terms.

When the Nazis wanted to round up all the Danish Jews, the Danes flat out refused and the Nazis couldn't do much about it.

Less "couldn't" and more "didn't," but otherwise, yes.

In a pony universe, Napoleon would become some sort of supervillain. Maybe after escaping St Helena, they defeat him again and Celestia exiles him to the Moon.

Then he comes back with Nightmare Moon and has yet another go!

...I would read that. Maybe D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers could join up with the Elements of Harmony! One for all, all for friendship! I love me some Alexandre Dumas. "The cider of Anjou," working chapter title.

Holy crap, I have to write that down.

5618283
This would be simple depend on the question: was the ponys and griffons also part of the roman-empire or not?

If they were they also would count as Arier, if not they would be treated like the jews. It all was a kind of heritage thing, Hitler gloryfied the german heritage to unite the people of 'Das dritte Reich' behind him. So because the 3´th Reich was a folower of the two before in this viewpoint it is only a question how the equestrians was connected to them before.

5618967
That's oversimplifying it massively. The Roman Empire covered, quite apropos, all the known world at one point. Even the Holy Roman Empire covered large parts of the kind of Slavic and Baltic regions that would, under Hitler, be considered not quite Untermensch, but the next best thing. It's not quite as easy as saying "they were Romans once, so they're Aryan."

The third Reich considered itself a successor to the second German Reich, which is the HRE, that much is true, but that's mostly a matter of political and territorial legitimacy. Racially, it's not quite as clear-cut.

5619007
He simple asked about the griffon and Ponys IN germany not the others around europe. My point is, if the roman empire had ponys and griffons in the higher social classes, the P&G´s that lived in germany at the time of Hitler would count as Arier too.

For the P&G´s outside of germany the viewpoint would be different.

5619019
And I find that very debatable. "Arisch" is a racial category. Not a cultural or a historical one - Aryans were believed to be an actual ethnic group. Non-humans cannot be Aryan, by simple definition. The fact that they're predominantly dark-haired was enough for eastern Germans to receive the appellation Prussian-Aryan instead of proper Aryan, just on that basis alone. The Nazis might not have decided that they were an underclass of people that needs to be destroyed, but they could never have been Aryan simply by the racial categories that were applied under the Nürnberg laws.

5619034
Good point, however the question was only if they are part of the reich or get destroyed. So the answer is the same no matter how you look at it.

The Nazis might not have decided that they were an underclass of people that needs to be destroyed, but they could never have been Aryan simply by the racial categories that were applied under the Nürnberg laws.

So no Arisch people but still part of the Reich.

5619043
Fair enough, that works.

5618484
Well he can't because in Turtledove's work he mostly writes around the point of divergence, keeping the previous history the same. This would require a whole new history, and the whole WorldWar series was just an alien invasion.

5618784
Really? Napoleon as a Hitler-esque supervillian? The Napoleonic Code was one of the most liberating of it's time, if anything Celestia would probably like that.

5619165
And Cardinal Richelieu wasn't actually a scheming villain trying to take the throne of France, either, but that didn't stop Dumas. It's a neat and funny idea. Try to judge it on its own merits.

Also, imagine Nightmare Moon with a French accent and a love for cheese, born from their shared incarceration. How couldn't that make for a great story?

5619170
Except we're spending this thread trying to help give this guy advice on Historical accuracy. I responded to the guy's comments on how Napoleon would be viewed, not some story idea.

5619196
*shrug* Napoleon isn't terribly relevant to a 1950s scenario and historical accuracy always takes a backseat to entertainment value anyway. We already know that Napoleon was not a supervillain, even if he isn't actually particular popular in most parts of Europe outside of France. An idea for what you could do with him instead of that is more valuable to potential discussion. I'm actually considering writing that Three Musketeers crossover idea. Would take a bit of research, but the whole "high adventure" styles would just mesh so well.

5619212
Have you read the book? Do you know much about the Ancien Regime and 17th Century France? Cause it has nothing to do with Napoleon.

5619251
Those two things were unrelated to each other, I was just speaking generally. And yes, I have. That's about all I know about the France of the time, but it's not like I'd be looking to write a period piece, just a fun bit of swashbuckling.

5619285

but it's not like I'd be looking to write a period piece, just a fun bit of swashbuckling.

And this is what leads to bad stories. Not knowing anything about the setting you're writing about.

5619294
Putting "setting accuracy" over "being fun" may lead to what some people consider good stories, but I consider being boring the worse crime and always have. Nobody needs to or wants to read about the intricacies of Mark-88 Anti Aircraft guns. That is bad historical accuracy. If nobody cares and it matters nothing to the story, it isn't worth mentioning except to the type of person who memorizes and obsessively follows train schedules.

5618283 Hate to be a downer but if we add ponies to the late Wiemar Republic it's doubtful that Hitler would ever have won the elections in 1933. Given the nature of the ponies either the communists or liberals would have won, or maybe even within the German far right the reactionaries were more prominent than the national socialists and by 1933 a Wilhelm III would be in charge.

5619316
There's a difference between that and knowing next to nothing about the setting you're writing in.

5619323
Well, I'd do research, obviously. I said I know nothing about it now, not that I wouldn't read up on it before writing something like that. I do have some professional pride.

5619316

it isn't worth mentioning except to the type of person who memorizes and obsessively follows train schedules.

127 million Japanese people is a pretty big market.

5619330
They'd be too busy sitting in salaryman-offices and neglecting their families to actually read it, though.

So...
Does this mean my colorful donkeys would be gassed?

Or processed for serving at sushi bars?

You guys are terrible at answering my questions.

My intial interpretation of the Nazis in the story plays into the hypocrisy of America and their own racial policies aka. the Jim Crowe laws. In the story, though the Holocaust still happened and millions of Jews were executed, German-born Equestrians were still eligible to join the Reich as soldiers and officers. Some going as far as holding top positions in Hitler's inner circle. Of course, most of them will meet the same fate as the rest of the Nazi war criminals after the fall of the Reich.

And while the Americans subjugate the American-born Equestrians (ponies, griffins, minotaurs, etc.) by racially sidelining them, the Nazis actually embrace their differences and though they may not be Aryan, they're still considered near equals. In America however, Equestrians are treated no different than the colored individuals and are racially sidelined.

Same applies to Equestrian born humans who are subjected to Jim Crowe-like laws in Equestria.

Least that's my initial plan.

5619573

And while the Americans subjugate the American-born Equestrians (ponies, griffins, minotaurs, etc.) by racially sidelining them, the Nazis actually embrace their differences and though they may not be Aryan, they're still considered near equals.

Yeah, that's definitely going too far in the other direction. Make no mistake there, the Nazis were not nice people and any story that portrays their racial policies as less horrible than the foreign equivalents of the time is deluding itself. If you're thinking of making it look like the Nazis are even relatively speaking the good guys there, then it's just revisionist history and not accurate anymore in any sense of the word. It barely needs saying, but he Nazis were super racist. Way more so thant he American administration of the time.

5619573
Alright... so... there's an important thing to know about hypocrisy is that it's a general trait, just depends on how far it goes or whether it's recognized, and even then it depends on your personal definition. For example, slavery existed long before the African Slave Trade, and laws like Jim Crowe existed in a variety of forms through history. Even antisemitism wasn't new, it was literally everywhere and the Holocaust only showed everyone it's bad to systematically murder millions. But you look at stuff like the Pogroms in Russia, the Stalinist Purges, the treatment of the Irish during the famine, just a few of many examples. That's not to say they're good things, because they're not, but it shows how hollow a term like hypocrite can be. There's countless numbers of similar issues over history that you have to read, all different and the same.

To go back to talking about Napoleon, and the American Constitution, it's similar to that. All the things we have today were worked to over time, everyone didn't wake up one day and agree that people should have a certain set of rights. Part of one is when people go about calling the American founding fathers terrible hypocrites for not including rights to colored people or women, and many owning slaves; the reason they're not is because they did do something radical for the time in granting so many rights and setting up such a government. Many did not think they were doing much wrong, while others had understandable reasons for tolerating it; we look back with the gift of hindsight. The Constitution wasn't full, but it was a big step forward. That in turn leads us to the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which gave equality and liberty to all men, men only again but still it was further than others had gotten and another step.

But me, I fall into the camp of the French Revolution being a tragedy. It did give us the Declaration of Rights but it gave it through the blood of hundreds of thousands murdered. The same goes for Napoleon, expanding on individuals with the Napoleonic Code but becoming an Emperor and launching Europe into long and destructive wars. Again, I'm in the camp that Napoleon did more harm than good but it doesn't mean the Code was bad nor that he was horribly hypocritical with it. My history professor, who spent most of his 50 odd year career specializing on France, actually thinks differently in that both were good, which only goes to reinforce the whole point of how grey the world is.

That's why I hate when people go on about us being so 'advanced' and how older people were 'uncivilized hypocrites' and such; people in the future will probably look back on us in a similar fashion with their own set of morals. It's interesting in that my professor gave a good quote over ideals, that they're 'like stars, we can't reach them but they light up our life, and give us a direction to follow in the dark.' It's difficult for any nation/group to fully reach their ideals, but that doesn't mean they're hypocrites, it just makes them human.

5619584 Not trying to give them any redeeming qualities. The idea was that regardless of race, both German-born humans and Equestrians are in fact both evil and super racist but united under a single banner and cause, no matter how twisted it may be.

5619666

Mm, to be fair to Napoleon, the French Revolutionary Wars had already been going on for years before he took charge; what he did was start winning.

5618450 In the story, Equestria joined the war back in WWI but when the newly crowned King Solaris took his place on the throne, he declared full neutrality during WWII, going as far as to seal the nation off from the outside world, unfortunately leaving thousands of Equestrians stranded across the globe with no way of getting home until the war ended. This drew widespread criticism, including his fellow Equestrians who had lost loved ones to the war.