What if
I've been thinking vaguely over the past couple days about the notion of post-colonial speculative fiction, and about how few stories we see that are set on modern-day Earth in places other than predominantly white, Christian, and generally English-speaking nations. And it occurred to me to wonder what India would've turned into if the Europeans hadn't colonized it. And then it occurred to me to wonder what other subjugated nations and peoples would've been like. I've seen plenty of alternate histories in which the Aztecs or other South or Central American native peoples survive as world powers to the modern day, and I like those; but I think it might be cool to explore some other areas. Taking India as an example, it could range from "Europeans never got there" (is that part of Years of Rice and Salt?) to "local societies band together and fight off the Europeans" to "Europeans become trading partners rather than conquerors" to "locals develop advanced military technology earlier and invade Europe" to "East India Company fails [for whatever reason] and colony collapses economically". . . . All sorts of possibilities. (Though some of those may be wildly implausible; I don't know a lot about that period or place.)
But there's no way I'm gonna write such a story; too much research necessary, too little time available. I'm half-tempted to try to turn the idea into an anthology, alternate history stories about all sorts of conquered peoples (I recently heard an alternate-history speculation article about what would've happened if things had gone differently during an Old Testament battle between Jewish forces and a conquering king—Nebachudnezzar, maybe?), but I think I'll go read submissions until the urge passes.
(Hmm. Occurs to me that something like this might be a nice backdrop for a Spicy Zeppelin Tale. Must ponder further.)
Anyway, if this sparks ideas for anyone, by all means run with it.
