Alton Towers Alternate History Moments

[QTXAdsy]

Now for something a wee bit different. As some of you might know I do love following alternate history and you will have noticed I have done a thread on here of a alternate Alton Towers history on here but it has got me thinking about many other 'what if' moments in the park's history and if there are any other moments to go from that others might have.

Now off the bat I don't want to go into the cliché topics like 'What if Tussauds never acquired Towers' or 'What if the Cross Valley Coaster got built' but rather some other thoughts from recent memory that likely have affected the park into its current state which the biggest one being 'What if the Smiler crash never happened' which to be is perhaps a major point of diversion in the park's history which maybe if it hadn't happened the park wouldn't find itself it many of its problems now or perhaps the lack of a crash would just postpone the invertible as what we have now.

So if you have any other ideas you might have in mind, write up any possible what if moment that fascinates you and what might've happened with one topic that comes to mind being 'What if Wicker Man had been replaced Congo River Rapids instead of Flume and the latter had survived' as there are many moments in the park's history that can all be included here for us to speculate on what could have happened had other choices been made so over to you guys.

 

[Secret Weapon]

Here are two that I can think of (one more recent than the other, but both relating to the same ride!):-

1) What if Merlin had decided not to retrack Nemesis, and decided to build a different ride on the site instead? Would the new ride have retained any of the Nemesis name? If not, then what effect would this have had upon Nemesis Sub Terra and Forbidden Valley in general (and, now, Toxicator)?

I've heard some people say that it would have been pointless to build a new ride because the new ride would have essentially had to follow the same contours of the valley as Nemesis (which were custom excavated for the ride), and thus may have been an almost identical ride anyway.

The only change that I personally would have made to Nemesis Reborn would be to have built it as a wing-coaster instead of an inverted coaster, as I think that this fits the concept better, and - in my opinion - the original Nemesis probably would have been a wing-coaster if the technology had been available in 1994. The only downside is that a wing-coaster might take more space, and thus may not have fit without further excavations, and perhaps groups of 4 would have missed the opportunity to sit together (I'm not sure if it's possible to have an inverted coaster train and a wing-coaster train on the same track at the same time?).

2) This is probably unlikely, but what if John Wardley had decided to retain the 'Secret Weapon' name for the B&M inverted coaster, instead of calling it 'Nemesis'? Would Thunder Valley have been renamed to Forbidden Valley? What effect would this have had upon Nemesis Inferno and Nemesis Sub Terra? Would the ride have been any less successful in 1994, or was the appeal of an inverted coaster too strong to be affected by the branding? (my personal opinion was that the ride still would have been very successful, regardless of its name)