The Avatar wasn't Aang, but he did manage to get himself stuck in an iceberg.
Instead of sending their men out to assist the Earth Kingdom, the entire Southern Water Tribe went on a great migration to join with the North in an effort to keep themselves safe from the Fire Nation. As the children of the Southern chief, Sokka and Katara were given all the privileges of Water Tribe royalty, and Prince Sokka of the South is now a potential future husband for Princess Yue of the North. The North is pitching in with the war effort, Hakoda having convinced their chief to act rather than sit back and attempt to stay out of it.
Zuko and Azula were close, and both knew that their father only cared for them as tools. The princess convinced her brother not to attend the war meeting for fear of what would happen if he said something wrong and got in trouble. Instead, she got one of the generals to tell them what had happened. When he heard the plan, Zuko tried to change his father's mind, but to no avail. A year later he was exiled for continuously speaking out against aspects of the Firelord's war plans- in other words, discreet attempts at treason. He got Azula to stay behind so that she could take care of things in the Fire Nation while he was gone. He was not tasked with capturing the Avatar, and was not stripped of his honor. He simply went into disguise and lived as a nonbending traveler until his sister sent word for him to come back.
Sozin's Comet came, but Firelord Ozai never got the chance to destroy the Earth Kingdom with its power. His daughter challenged him to a to-the-death Agni Kai for the throne and won- barely. She intended to take the throne only long enough to get her brother back. Zuko, however, had hidden himself so well by then that she couldn't find him. She is still searching, and is keeping the war going for a few reasons- she sees no good reason to stop it, she still at least partially believes the whole 'sharing their greatness' thing, and some part of her mind blames the other nations for her failures in finding her brother. Mostly, though, it's because she's still the same Azula from the show, to some extent, and believes in Fire Nation supremacy.
Iroh went with Zuko for the first few months of exile, but once he was sure that his nephew could handle himself, he returned to the Fire Nation to be an advisor to Azula and keep an eye on his brother. He was as surprised as anyone when she challenged the late Firelord for the throne and actually managed to win. He now has a seat as her top advisor and firebending master (not like she needs a teacher- it's mainly an ornamental title) after turning down an offer to be reinstated as a General.
The Earth King discovered the war when a visiting nobleman mentioned how it was interfering with his trade caravans, and the people of Ba Sing Se no longer have the Dai Li telling them that 'There is no war in Ba Sing Se. Here, we are safe. Here, we are free.' King Kuei is more like a king and less like a child now, and can actually make war plans with his generals instead of sitting around hosting parties and playing with Bosco.
Toph Bei-Fong eventually got fed up with her parents' believing her to be a helpless blind girl and ran away, leaving a note that told them vaguely that she wasn't what they thought she was, and she was leaving to be herself. She now travels around, evading the people her father sent to bring her back and earning money through scams and earthbending competitions.
Kyoshi Island is still out of the war, but the Kyoshi Warriors have nothing to do on their one little island except training and policing, and not much of that even needs to be done. Recently a girl passed through and got a bit of training from one of the warriors. The girl's stories of how terrible the war was and how badly so many people needed help really touched some of the inhabitants of the island. The warriors' leader, Suki, is thinking of taking some of the girls to the Earth Kingdom to help out in any way they can. They haven't done anything yet, but it's only a matter of time . . .
There are a few isolated groups of Air Nomads left, most of them nonbenders, and all in disguise. One small community lives in the middle of the ocean on an uncharted island. They are made up of the children and grandchildren of a group of younger monks who escaped via sky bison when the Fire Nation attacked. One group of Air Nomad descendants live in an Earth Kingdom village, who hide their bending abilities at all times. One airbender girl had been in the Fire Nation at the time of the attack, and is now acting as a citizen of the very country that killed her people. A larger group of Air Nomads have come together in the Earth Kingdom and are planning on taking up residence in the Eastern and Northern Air Temples. A pair of twins live in Ba Sing Se and work as the servants of a nobleman. All of the surviving airbenders hope that one day the war will end and they will be able to return to the Air Temples to become a nation again.
A few herds of wild sky bison are still alive to this day, some hanging around the Air Temples but more simply wandering where the wind takes them. They are hunted on occasion, but the hunters don't normally succeed.
The Avatar is still missing, but not for long . . .
OK, so this AU idea stemmed from a few 'What if?' thoughts and a little adventure I had on Roblox. Do not ask what Roblox has to do with this if you see no resemblance or mentions of it in the story. Some of the what ifs were along the lines of: What if Zuko and Azula had been closer? What if Sozin's comet came, but the for some reason Fire Nation was unable to use it? What if the Avatar hadn't been found by Katara and Sokka? What if he hadn't been found in the Water Tribe at all? What if Toph ran away?
There were more, but saying them all would take too long and take up too much space. So I'm asking anyone who gets this far- Should I write something in this world? Would any of you like to write something based off of this? Should I just trash the whole idea? Please let me know.
(-Edit-)
I would also like to know if you think some of the ideas are good but some aren't, or if you think that I would do better to split the ideas and only use a few for this story, but some of them for another, or anything like that.
The reason (well, one of them) this all seems so 'convenient' for our dear unnamed protagonists, as some of my reviewers have pointed out, is that it would be more challenging for me as a writer to make something like this worth reading than if I had given tons of conflict right off the bat. The idea is to give you the above information without telling you the plot or conflicts that I'm thinking about, so as to keep it a surprise for when the story actually comes out. I wouldn't give a layout of the whole plot, conflicts, resolutions, romances, characters, and all, if I wanted the story to retain peoples' interest when it actually came out.
As it is, thank you for the reviews, ClickyPen, RunWithScissors, NatNicole, Tina, and the two unnamed guest reviewers. Those of you who gave constructive criticism, it has helped me see and improve some of the flaws in my ideas. Those of you who gave praise and vows to read it once it came out, it's helped my confidence in this potential story. (Putting this in here because you guys don't have real accounts and I therefore can't thank you how I normally do, through PM x3)
