Right from the beginning of the One Piece Saga, we are being told that the Marines are
the greatest enemies for pirates and a massive obstacle for Luffy becoming pirate king.
To put it simply, being a marine and being a pirate are as opposite as it gets in One
Piece.
Pirates want absolute freedom and change, while Marines want control and stability.
And so Luffy’s path to becoming a legendary pirate, is full of battles with the Marine
organization.
However, during the mini arc about Luffy’s childhood, it’s actually explained that
his grandfather, who raised him instead of his parents and who is one of the most powerful
and famous Marines in the story, always wanted Luffy to follow in his footsteps.
Now, in the end, Luffy of course chose to follow in the footsteps of Shanks instead,
quickly becoming a pirate and a prime target for the Marines.
But that leaves a very interesting question on the table: What if Luffy never got inspired
by Shanks?
What if instead of a pirate, Luffy had become a Marine?
So our story starts during Luffy’s childhood, where he originally got inspired to become
a pirate.
Of course, we could simply assume that Luffy never meets Shanks, however I think we still
want Luffy to eat his devil fruit, that Shanks brought with him.
So instead, Luffy needs someone else to be inspired by BEFORE Shanks ever arrives on
his island.
So for our specific scenario here I want to assume that Luffy’s Grandfather Garp brings
along one of his former students to visit Luffy.
The marine admiral Aokiji.
In the actually story line, Aokiji has always been sympathetic towards Luffy.
He was relived that Luffy took in Robin and allowed Luffy and the straw hats to escape
multiple times.
Throughout the story we are being told that Aokiji is basically the ideal Marine, who
has a fair sense of justice and truly cares about the safety and happiness of the people.
Just like Shanks, he is extremely charismatic and powerful.
So Luffy, who badly needs a role model, sees him using his epic ice powers and beat up
some bad guys, which would be a great alternative to Shanks.
Saying goodbye to Luffy’s grandfather Garp, Aokiji makes Luffy promise to one day become
a great Marine too.
And so Luffy’s new goal is not to become pirate king.
Instead, he now wants to become the marine fleet admiral.
And with that we have the decisive change in Luffy’s story.
Now the rest of his childhood can stay pretty much exactly the same, training and with Garp,
Sabo and Ace.
Shanks still arrives at the island.
Luffy still befriends his entire crew.
And he still eats his devil fruit because he is hungry.
Okay, so before we can talk about what happens with the other straw hats and how the story
overall plays out from here, i need to make 2 assumptions about the main story line that
are very likely, but not officially confirmed yet.
Assumption 1: Garp is a member of sword.
Sword is a secret group within the marines that doesn’t like how the Marines are being
controlled and used by the corrupt world government of the one piece world.
And Assumption 2 is that Shanks knows that Luffy is important to change the world, and
wants him to become pirate king and find the one piece.
If you are caught up to the manga, or don’t mind about spoilers I have videos about both
these claims, that you can watch later.
For us, it’s only important to know, that Shanks really tries to inspire Luffy to become
a pirate, but fails.
And even though Luffy wants to become a Marine, thanks to Shanks, he still very much likes
the idea of having a sort of crew or team.
So, 10 years later, Luffy sets out in his small boat in exactly the same way as he does
in the main timeline.
His goal is not to find a pirate crew, but instead find a marine base where he can join.
He’s still Luffy and has no experience of sailing a boat.
So once again he ends up in the barrel on Alvida’s ship.
There he saves Koby and the two of them end up in the same town as before.
This time not to recruit Zoro, but to join the marines at the base.
However, when Luffy sees Zoro tied in the courtyard and talks to him, he starts to realize
that the Marine captain and his son here are terrible people.
So Luffy being Luffy, I like to think that he still takes an interest in Zoro and decides
to free him, even if it will cost him his dream of becoming a Marine.
After he beats up Axehand Morgan, he asks the Marines if he, Koby and Zoro could still
join the Marines, even though he never discussed it with Zoro.
Now, even though the Marines of the base are thankful to Luffy, like it happens in the
main story line, when more soldiers arrive from the Marine headquarters to arrest Morgan,
he tells them about Luffy’s attack.
As a result, the captain of the squad tells Luffy that even though he is grateful for
what he did, he can’t let someone join the Marines who attacked a higher up.
To everyone’s surprise however, Garp is also on board of the ship, who had come to
pick up Luffy.
And as we know, Garp doesn’t care about the rules and the higher ups at all and he
decides to take all of them in as recruits.
So now Luffy, Zoro, Koby and Helmeppo are making their way towards the grandline and
marine headquarters on board of Garp’s ship, where he trains all of them hard every single
day.
Remember, Garp was able to teach people like Koby and Helmeppo a ton of super strong techniques
in a matter of months, so just imagine how fast Luffy and Zoro would grow under his supervision.
Since Luffy and Zoro are not in need of a better ship this time tough, they never make
it to Syrup village, where they meet Usopp in the main story line.
As a result, Captain Kuro can execute his plan to plunder the village and Usopp is killed.
Sanji however is another story.
Now, usually Marine ships have a unique ability that pirate ships don’t.
While all pirates must enter the grand line by going through reverse mountain, Marine
ships can actually cross the so-called calm belt, a strip of ocean between the grand line
and the normal ocean, that has no wind and is filled with giant sea monsters that sink
any ship that tries to pass through it.
Marine ships use a material called sea stone that basically makes them invisible to these
monsters, so they can enter and leave the grandline when and wherever they please.
So Garp could take them directly though the calm belt to the marine headquarters.
But I’d like to think that he would want to spend as much time with his new recruits
as possible before showing them to the fleet admiral Sengoku and also show his grandson
the world a bit.
So I’m going to assume that Garp would take the ship towards reverse mountain.
As a result, they would pass by the Baratie on their way to the grand line.
Again this could go either way, because Luffy really needs to do some convincing to get
Sanji to join his crew, but i like to think that he would convince Sanji once again to
see the world with him and look for the all blue as a marine.
Meanwhile, Zoro would still get his duel with Mihawk, something the other marines are against,
but Garp allows anyways.
Mihawk takes an interest in this marine grunt who is willing to sacrifice his life for his
honor as a swordsman.
After that, there is of course also a chance that they never meet Nami and simply pass
by Arlong Park.
However, there are two possible reasons why Garp would take them there anyways.
Maybe he heard about the corrupt Marines in the area, that Arlong had paid off to leave
him alone.
Definitely something Garp would do i think.
Or maybe Garp knew Bellmere, Nami’s foster mother, who was a former Marine that found
Nami as a baby and was later killed by Arlong.
After all they were both from the east blue.
So he might have decided to visit her grave on the island.
In this case, Luffy, Koby, Helmeppo, Zoro and Sanji meet Nami and later find her crying.
Once again Luffy takes them to Arlong Park and beats him.
In memory of her mother Bellmere and in order to draw a map of the world, Nami decides to
also join Garp’s squad.
Luffy is then promoted from Grunt straight to seaman first class for defeating a powerful
pirate, which would be similar to his 30 million berry bounty he gets here.
The last stop before Reverse mountain is Logue Town, where the group meets Smoker, who immediately
takes a liking to Luffy.
Smoker started to like and respect Luffy more and more in the actual story, despite hating
pirates, so I think he would vibe really well with Marine Luffy right from the start.
And while Zoro is looking for new swords to replace the ones he lost against Mihawk, Luffy
runs into his father Dragon, who is having a tense conversation with his grandfather.
And then they finally enter the grandline through reverse mountain.
Here they meet Crocus, a member of Gol D. Roger’s crew, the first pirate king.
He of course knows about Luffy from Shanks.
In the main story line, he helps the straw hats by telling them about the final island
of the grand line Laugh Tale and giving them the Logue Pose that is necessary to navigate
from island to island.
In our version however, Crocus is not of too much help.
He greets Garp, because the two of them fought together against the legendary rocks pirate
crew many years ago.
And he tells Garp that Luffy is special and should have become a pirate.
So Luffy doesn’t even know about Laugh Tale yet here.
They group of young Marines also encounters Vivi.
Garp, who knows her father Kobra, the king of Albasta recognizes her as the princess.
Under tears she tells them about Crocodile and what he has done do her country.
Luffy promises her to take her home and help her.
On the way there, they stop at Drum Island, because Garp has heard rumors about Ace having
been there.
Worried for his foster grandson, who is chasing after Blackbeard, they ask in the village
if anyone has seen him.
Luffy is not able to free Drum island from Wapol, because he is an official ruler protected
by the world government, but he does get to meet and recruit chopper.
Shortly after that, they reach Alabasta, where they once again run into smoker to investigate
what is going on with Crocodile.
The warloard laughs at Luffy and Vivi that they can’t do anything and Luffy prepares
to fight him.
However Garp steps in to stop Luffy.
The warloards are part of the world government and can’t be touched by the Marines.
Luffy will have to wait until Garp reports this to Sengoku and the higher ups.
Luffy is starting to get really frustrated and angry at the Marine system for its unfairness
at this point.
Clearly what is happening here is bad, and he’s supposed to let it go?
Luffy also quickly meets ace.
Then his group runs into Nico Robin.
Garp has no other choice than arresting one of the most wanted people in the world.
When Luffy asks him why, Garp tells him to be quiet.
Leaving Alabasta, they run into Luffy’s mentor and hero Aokiji, who is biking on the
ocean.
Just like in the main timeline, Aokiji came looking for robin to make sure she was okay.
He convinces Garp to not turn her in, but let her escape.
This gives him even more points in Luffy’s book, who then invites Robin to join the Marines.
Garp and Aokiji yell at him that that’s impossible.
However a short time later, Robin is being picked up by the revolutionaries and Dragon,
although no one knows who contacted him.
Since they are on a marine ship, other than in the main story line, they simply pass by
Jaya, Water 7 and thriller bark.
Franky is at some point caught by CP9, while Brook is stuck in the florian Triangle for
a bit longer.
However he gets his shadow back a while later.
Either when Moria gets defeated at Marineford or when he tries to attack Kaido in Wano again
and fails.
Instead Luffy’s group manages to capture some pirates with higher bounties, testing
out their new skills.
Luffy is now already able to use Haki and also use the techniques of the six powers.
Before they finally reach Marineford and the headquarters, they stop at Sabaody archipelago,
where Garp wants to introduce Luffy and the others to X Drake.
Drake is one of the few officially known members of sword and even though Luffy and co don’t
know about it yet, Garp is already planning to integrate all of them into sword as well.
On the island Luffy finds his way into the slave auction house and is absolutely appalled.
Seeing the celestial dragons reminds him of the fire at the grey terminal and how the
celestial dragons sunk Sabo’s ship.
luffy is about to punch charlos, just like in the main time line, when Rayleigh makes
his appearance.
He knocks out most people in the auction hall with his conquorers haki and takes Luffy and
the others to his bar.
There he introduces himself as Roger’s right hand man and tells Luffy that he has been
waiting for him.
He tries to convince Luffy to quit the Marines and allow him to train with him.
Luffy has at this point experienced a number of heavy blows to his confidence in the marines,
but at that moment Garp comes crashing in and after a short and heated conversation
with Rayleigh pulls Luffy back to the ship.
Finally they arrive at Marineford, where Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Nami, Chopper, Koby and Helmeppo
are all introduced to Sengoku, Kizaru and Akainu.
Luffy does like Sengoku and seems neutral towards Kizaru, but it’s clear right from
the start that he already dislikes Akainu for the way he talks and acts about pirates.
The next few weeks, Garp and other officers train the group hard and send them on a number
of smaller missions.
Luffy is even promoted to one of the youngest captains in marine history for his incredible
fighting ability.
However then news arrive that his brother Ace has been captured by Backbeard and handed
over to the government to be executed.
Luffy snaps at those news and it takes Garp’s and the squads collective effort to stop Luffy
marching to impel down by himself to break Ace out.
Instead, Marineford starts to prepare for war against Whitebeard.
As a result, the prison break from impel down never happens.
Jinbei doesn’t manage to escape from level 6 either.
Most importantly though, without Luffy’s great escape, Blackbeard’s attempt to recruit
the level 6 pirates backfires and he and his crew are defeated by Magellan.
The war itself happens quite similarly to the main timeline, only that Luffy refuses
to fight at all.
Now, there are a few different ways this scenario could go of course.
One option is that Luffy snaps and joins up with Whitebeard to try and free Ace anyways.
We know that Luffy would do anything for his brother, so it’s not that unlikely he’d
just throw his marine career aside to do the right thing.
But for the sake of this story, let’s say sengoku or someone else stops Luffy from doing
anything when Ace is finally executed.
By Akainu of course, for continuity’s sake.
Which of course absolutely breaks Luffy.
Koby and Shanks stop the war again, but this time Shanks walks up to Luffy and talks to
him. he tells Luffy that he has the power to make the world a better place and tells
him to meet him in 2 years in the new world.
Only slowly overcoming his pain from loosing ace, Luffy trains hard for 2 years and finally
Garp invites all of his students to join Sword.
Luffy takes the opportunity to meet up with shanks and joins his crew as an undercover
agent, like Drake does with Kaido and Aokiji with blackbeard in the main timeline.
Shanks trains luffy even more, teaching him the truth about his devil fruit, the importance
of finding the one piece and reaching laugh tale.
And i would say at this point, Luffy either fully goes back to being a pirate and becoming
pirate king or he stays a part of sword, reaches laugh tale and actually manages to become
the fleet admiral of a marine orginization that is free and independent of the world
government.
I think Luffy is just such a special person, that even as a marine he would still be able
to change the world.
So maybe a much better question to ask, would be: What would happen to the one piece world
if Luffy was never born in the first place?
Because that one is a lot darker timeline than this.
If you’re curious you can watch that one right here.
THanks for watching.