Alternate Histories (❌❌🕚) is the seventeenth episode of the first volume of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS.
3 Symbols:
- Cross
- Cross
- Clock
Episode Synopsis[]
Want to see Hitler die in a variety of comically fantastic ways? Now you can. Welcome to Multiversity!
Plot[]
The computer presenter introduces the viewer to Multiversity: America's leading alternate history research app. The presenter explains the app's ability to modify any historical fact and watch virtual simulations of how history would change as a result of the historical fact being modified.
The presenter then demonstrates how Multiversity works, by presenting six different scenarios in which a young Adolf Hitler dies in 1908, long before he ever got the chance to become the Führer:
- Killed during a brawl on the steps of the Academy of Fine Arts
- Killed by run-away horse-drawn wagon filled with bratwurst
- Killed by suffocation when encased in a block of gelatin
- Killed by marathon fornification with four viennese prostitutes
- Killed by a meteor strike square on the head
- Caught in the crossfire between time-travelling anti-nazis sent back to kill him, and time-travelling nazis sent back to prevent his assassination. Finally saved by his future self. Hitler forgets the first rule of time travel: Never touch your doppelganger. Killed by space-time paradox.
The sixth scenario causes a Blue Screen of Death and the app reboots itself. The Presenter apologizes for the error and then thanks the app user for using the app. The episode ends with the user selecting a different alternative timeline where Abraham Lincoln shoots first.
Killed during a brawl on the steps of the Academy of Fine Arts[]
Hitler bursts out through the doors of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. As he walks down the steps onto the pavement, he accidentally bumps into a Jewish boy. Hitler drops his artwork as he falls head-first onto the pavement, and it flies everywhere.
Enraged, Hitler gets up and launches into a hate-filled tirade. He grabs the boy's ear and smacks him on the face. Just as he is about to smack the boy a second time, two Jewish men armed with melee weapons appear from behind and they walk right up to him. Realizing that he is outmatched, Hitler nervously pats the boy on the head.
The boy pulls a switchblade from his pocket and stabs Hitler on the shin with it. Hitler screams like a girl, and then they proceed to beat him to death.
World War I proceeds as it would have in the normal timeline, but with Hitler out of the picture, things begin to become different. The Weimar Republic begins late, World War II begins on 1948 instead of 1939, and America drops an atomic bomb on Berlin in 1952.
The alternate timeline demonstration ends with the Moon landing happening just as it did in the normal timeline, with Neil Armstrong as the first man on the Moon in 1969.
Killed by run-away horse-drawn wagon filled with bratwurst[]
The demonstration begins exactly like the previous demonstration, with Hitler bursting out through the doors of the Academy of Fine Arts. However, in this demonstation, Hitler successfully dodges the boy walking past him, only to immediately get run over by a run-away wagon when he tries to cross the road.
Vienna passes tough new legislation on horse-drawn vehicles, resulting in automobiles becoming more easily accepted. Austria would in time become the industrial powerhouse for automobiles. World War I proceeds as usual, but with the technological advances that Austria made and shared with its neighbors, Germany and its allies would ultimately win the war. The Great Depression is avoided.
The demonstration ends with Germany landing the first man on the Moon 11 years earlier in 1958, with Willy Brandt in Neil Armstrong's place, and with the German flag on the pole instead of the American flag.
Killed by suffocation when encased in a block of gelatin[]
The demonstation begins again in the same manner as the previous two. Hitler manages to successfully dodge the boy again, who would pull at his clothes away from the path of the run-away wagon before it could strike him.
Hitler shoos a bird off a bench in the park before sitting on it. He begins to write in his book while laughing manically at the thoughts in his head. The bird returns and tweets at Hitler, who proceeds to angrily shoo it off.
A giant block of gelatin suddenly lands on top of Hitler, suffocating him to death. Hitler was the random victim of an experimental weapon that is under the development of the Russian aristocracy. The gelatin-encasing weapon is used by Tsar Nicholas II to snuff out his political enemies, including Vladimir Lenin. World War I begins when Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated with the weapon, which is then used to quickly end the war in 1915.
The demonstration ends with Russia as the sole superpower of the world. Russia sends the first real man on the moon - Vladimir Putin - in 1988, 19 years later than the Apollo Moon landing.
Killed by marathon fornification with four viennese prostitutes[]
Hitler dodges the boy and the run-away wagon and begins to write in his book. Four prostitutes get his attention and he lustily bounces towards them, avoiding being encased in the giant block of gelatin in the process.
Hitler literally fornificates to death with the four prostitutes, and the prostitutes are then arrested. As they are about to be judged in court, they jump up from their pews and reveal themselves as libidinous travelers from a very sexy parallel dimension. The prostitutes teach the Viennese their sexy ways.
The demonstration ends with Janine Lindemulder as the first woman on the moon in 1996, 27 years later than the Apollo Moon landing. The numbers in the year date begin to have sex with each other.
Killed by a meteor strike square on the head[]
Hitler dodges the boy and the run-away wagon. The four prostitutes get his attention and he bounces towards him, before he is distracted by what appear to be lasers fizzing onto the grass. Hitler looks up and is horrified by what turns out to be a meteor. The meteor lands straight into Hitler and crushes him. The meteor was a precursor to a massive asteroid that would strike right into Earth, wiping out the human race, along with 93% of all species.
A rat pops out of the eye socket of Hitler's skull and proceeds to scuttle through the post-apocalyptic land. The rat finds a hole filled with light and climbs into it. The rat goes through the same evolutionary process as humans did, eventually evolving into a fully-functional civilization of rats that has become a perfect democracy. However, the rats discover nationalism, become divided against each other, and develop weapons of mass destruction that would eventually result in the second destruction of the world, along with the extinction of the rat race.
With the rats out of the picture, a civilization of peaceful sentient squids would eventually rise. It is this new race of evolved squids that would eventually manage to land on the moon. The demonstration ends with Gluugsnergluug as the first squid on the moon in 2973412, almost three million years later than the Apollo Moon landing.
Killed by space-time paradox.[]
Hitler dodges the causes of his five previous deaths including the meteor strike, which was blasted into dust just before it could land on Hitler's head. The laser blast came from a group of time-travelling Nazis who had come to save Hitler from another group of time-travelling anti-Nazis. Hitler sits on a bench as the two groups fire at each other.
Another time-traveler appears behind Hitler in a mecha suit. The time-traveler kills off the two groups before revealing themselves to be Hitler himself from the future. The two Hitlers - overjoyed by the presence of each other - proceed to reach out to each other. However, in doing so, they forget the first rule of time travel: never touch your doppelganger. Their actions cause a space-time paradox which results in a causality loop that completely annihilates all of time and space, killing every living thing that ever lived, was living, or will live.
The demonstration ends with a Blue Screen of Death appearing on-screen, before the Multiversity app reboots itself. It goes without saying that nothing ever landed on the moon in this scenario.
Cast[]
Rebecca Riedy at the Internet Movie Database as Computer Voice- Dieter Jansen at the Internet Movie Database as Young Hitler
- Scott Whyte at the Internet Movie Database as Future Nazi
Chris Cox at the Internet Movie Database as Male Background
Trivia[]
- The writer of the original story - John Scalzi - also wrote the stories that Three Robots and When the Yogurt Took Over were adapted from.
- In reality, Hitler was never actually accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Hitler applied for the university twice and was rejected both times.
- LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS premiered in 2019, which so happens to be 50 years after the actual mission that landed Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969.
- The fourth scenario might have drawn inspiration from the rumor that Hitler only had one testicle.
- The fifth scenario bears some similarity to the Splatoon game series, which also takes place in the far future where humanity has long since died out and replaced by squid-like sentient beings.
- When the future Nazis saved Adolf from the meteor, they either said "Heil Hitler" or "Hi Hitler"
Gallery[]
Below are screenshots of the episode.