Once upon a time at soc-history-what-if, someone coined the phrase “Alien Space Bats” to describe timelines with aspects that could only be explained by the eponymous bats flapping their wings. Originally a critical remark aimed at implausible 'serious' timelines, this was embraced by a class of timelines dealing with magic or arbitrary changes such as ISOTs. The term was embraced at AH.com along with other alternate history sites. And all was good.

On the Old Board, the ASB forum gave birth to perhaps its greatest achievement, the Mosaic Earth, which on the New Board was eventually spun off into its own forum, creating Shared Worlds. And all was still good.

Deprived of Mosaic earth, AH.com's ASB forum turned instead to more conventional ISOTs, plays on existing scenarios, variations on things like The Peshawar Lancers and Star Wars alternates. And everything was still pretty okay.

And then came the Dark Times, as the Teens invaded the board and turned ASB into AH.com4Retardz Kidz by means of endless circlejerk threads about people being turned into women and keeping Nazis as sex slaves to rape. In the words of that great orator of our times The Bald Imposter, ASB had become a cesspool.

Many words were said, but little was achieved to stem the dark tide until 2009, when the great Landshark announced the Landshark Offensive. And the Great Crusade began.