Editing Alternate History (section)

== Common Alternate History scenarios ==

There are a few Alternate History scenarios which are more common than most. Mostly this has to do with history which is, at least in the broad strokes, common knowledge.
*What if the [[Nazi]]s won WWII? Probably '''THE''' most discussed Alternate History scenario.
**In particular, if you've ever heard the phrase "Alien Space Bats" in relation to Alternate History to refer to something implausible, the term was originally used in relationship to one of the more implausible such scenarios, [[wikipedia:Operation Sea Lion |Operation Sealion]] (short version: the proposed German invasion of Britain; widely considered completely implausible because (1) invasions by sea are already so goddamn hard, (2) they'd have to defeat the Royal Air Force before even considering it, (3) also needing to defeat the British Royal Navy before even considering it, (4) ''also'' needing to remove British Submarines as a consideration before even considering it, (5) did we mention sea invasions are goddamn hard? Because they really are, and (6) many, many other reasons).
*What if the Confederates won the [[Industrial Revolution|US Civil War]]?
*What if the Soviets won the [[Cold War]]?
*What if the [[Cold War]] went Hot?
*What if the US Became a Fascist Dictatorship?
*What if the US had a Communist Revolution?
*What if the British won the War of Independence?
*What if Napoleon won the Napoleonic Wars?
*What if the French Revolution never happened?
*What if Imperial Germany won the Great War?
*What if the [[Roman Empire]] did not fall and survived to the current day?
*What if the Space Race unfolded differently (Soviets got to the moon first, Nazis fled to the Moon after WWII, the British Empire got men into orbit in 1886 using some steampunk super-tech, etc)
*What if Aliens showed up in WWII, the Cold War, the Wild West, etc?
*What if Vampires and Wizards and Werewolves and stuff appeared in WWII, the Cold War, the Wild West, etc?
*What if the Cretaceous Paleogene Extinction Event did not happen and Non-Avian [[Dinosaur]]s survived?

=== Hard AH and Weird History ===
Another way to break down Alternate History is in regards to if they aim for plausibility or a fantastic worlds. If the English won the American Revolutionary War because of military decisions and the death of George Washington, such an occurrence is entirely plausible given the information of the time period in question. The same could not be said if the Confederates raised an army of Vampires and Werewolves to win the Civil War.
=== Paratime ===
A subset of Alternate History which leans into sci-fi and goes off the Infinite Universes model. There are a bunch of different worlds where history has gone differently. Moreover it's possible to travel from world to world. You can build a portal machine and go to a world where the Brits won the American Revolution, adjust the dial and you can go to one where the Nazis won WWII. But the problem is that if you can do it, so can they. So you might have to worry about Nazis coming to our world to cause trouble.

TL/DR: think Sliders.

=== Islands in the Sea of Time ===
Another spin on the basic AH settup. A group of people in a town or on a ship or something are doing their normal daily routine when some day for some reason they are cast back in time to the Middle Ages or something. To survive they will have to adapt, make deals with the locals and build a new life for themselves.

=== Tickover AH ===
Here for completion's sake. What Sci-Fi gradually turns into after a while. [[1984|Nineteen Eighty-Four]] was written in 1948 and published in '49 written from the perspective of Orwell looking forward with an eye of satire and fear, but history thankfully did not take that course and the 80s had more cheesy pop music and neon clothes than telescreens or thought police officers. If you write a story set 10 years in the future, you'll likely see it turn into AH while [[Dune]] and [[Warhammer 40,000]] are insulated against this pretty well.