Alternate History
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"For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail."
- – Old proverb
Alternate History is a form of Setting Aesthetics and a genre of speculative fiction based on asking the question of "what if history went differently?". Nominally independent from Science Fiction and Fantasy, but often overlapping one or the other. There are plenty of historical events which could have gone differently (if certain decisions were made or factors were slightly different), and if they had it would have drastic consequences on subsequent events.
Exploring the implications of various scenarios where history happens differently, and how the Butterfly Effect creates different worlds from our own, is an exciting narrative exercise which often creates compelling settings for books, movies, TV shows, and games.
Alternate History settings are often described by their "point of divergence' - the event(s) that cause the setting to become different from our world.
Weird Wars is a particularly-popular subgenre of alternate history, especially World War II. Adding magic to WWII is practically a cliche at this point.
For example:
- "A struggling, embittered artist and war veteran named Adolf Hitler has a chance encounter which leads him to fall in love with and marry the daughter of an Italian chef. Having found personal contentment, Hitler chooses to remain a private citizen for the rest of his life. Without Hitler, the Nazi Party becomes a minor footnote in history and Fascism does not rise to power during the Antebellum years. Without the ideology of Fascism, Germany remains at peace with its neighbors, and the Holocaust does not occur."
Does the USSR start WWII decades later by annexing surrounding countries, without the deterrent of nuclear weapons? Does the Western world actually become peaceful? While Hitler's existence and qualities are a very famous and well-trodden alternate history question, it still has a myriad of possibilities. The answers that authors give to these kinds of questions, for any scenario, can underpin some very interesting settings.
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 Nazis won WWII?
- 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, 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 US Civil War?
- What if the Soviets won the Cold War?
- What if the Cold War went Hot?
- What if the British won the War of Independence?
- What if Napoleon won the Napoleonic War?
- 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 Dinosaurs survived?
/tg/ Alternate History Games:
- GURPS has written up dozens of alternate histories, some with very obscure points of divergence.
- Deadlands is an alternate Wild West, the point of divergence is the American Civil War continuing due to the reintroduction of magic.
- Bolt Action has the Konflikt 47 spin-off game where WWII ground on for long enough that the various powers started employing wacky gonzo forces.
- Team Yankee is an alt-history wargame, the point of divergence being a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe in 1985.
- Crimson Skies is a skirmish game, with a more severe Spanish Flu eventually leading to the breakup of the USA.
/v/ Alternate History Games:
- The Command & Conquer: Red Alert series has a time-travelling Albert Einstein assassinating Hitler as the point of divergence. Allied victory leads to the Red Alert canon timeline, while Soviet victory leads to mainline CnC timeline.
- The MachineGames Wolfenstein history (Starting with Wolf09 and leading to the Bethesda games) lead to the very grimdark future where the Nazis employ sci-fi shit to win WWII, leading to a nightmarish world where the Allies are reduced to literal homeless rebels hiding in ghettos while the victors develop insane things like giant robots and a colony on the moon.