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Does the supernatural have a place in Alternate History?

Aznavour

Well-known member
Published by SLP
Now, while I suspect the number of actual Marxists or those versed dialectics might not be that high, I'm fairly certain that the average reader/writer here must have a certain materialistic view of history, probably devoid of thoughs of destiny, providence, divine intervention, Great Men of History or even that Whiggish/Marxist concept of historical progress inevitability/historical determinism.

But at the same time, I assume many people here must believe in something other than the material, call it spiritual, supernatural, religious.

In history, things that would seem to defy materialistic explanation might take the form of contrived coincidences (Miracle of the House of Hohenzollern, etc.), seeming divine inspiration (Joan of Arc, any number of prophets that "made it", from Buddha to Mohammad, as opposed to those that failed and are just seen as heretics, even if they can all be rationally explained by future historians), alleged curses (Tecumseh killing presidents elected in years ending in 0, Jacques de Molay cursing the direct Capets to extinction), etc, etc.

In Alternate History, how this manifests might vary: the presence and alleged effectiveness of the I-Ching in The Man in the High Castle, ISOTs, the possible presence of fairies in Pavane, reincarnation and the interludes in the Bardo in Years of Rice and Salt, stuff with vampires and dragons and whatnot, etc.

But does the supernatural have a place in AH or AH literature? Or is that the equivalent of "soft" Science Fiction, detracting from a genre that is supposed to be "serious", as history is a proper science? How do you deal with stuff like this?
 
More broadly, it depends on how these supernatural elements interact with the wider story, and if the world they exist in reacts in a realistic way.

Like, if dragons exist, what kind are they? Are they the kind that can be tamed? What's their impact on the wider world and how has it changed, and in what ways?
 
It may be more science fantasy than AH, but there is a series by Gregory Keyes, The Age of Unreason, which portrays a world where Isaac Newton discovered a workable form of alchemy that is eventually weaponized by the major powers of 18th-century Europe, with major consquences. Another decent example would be Celestial Matters, where Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic and Taoist/Wuxing science are proven fact, and a mission to steal a piece of the Sun (a reference to OTL's Manhattan Project?) could break a thousand-year stalemate between the Delian League (founded by Alexander, using early steampunk-esque weapons built with Aristotle's guidance) and the Han Middle Kingdom.

Sulemain puts it best, I think: if the story's wider world is demonstrably different in realistic ways due to the presence of supernatural elements, then the supernatural can find a place in AH. From what I've gathered, the Temeraire series falls a bit short AH-wise in this regard with its premise (dragons are present in the world, and apparently always have been, but civilization and the bulk of history remains mostly the same as in OTL up to and through the Napoleonic era), yet is still intriguing enough that it remains on my to-read list.
 
Speaking for myself, my only real preferences for AH is that it be consistent within its own context, and that there isn't any obvious ideological or similar motivations driving the story.

So for instance, I have no problem with a supernatural premise so long as it's consistent. The original Island in the Sea of Time series had an unexplained supernatural (or something indistinguishable from supernatural) setup, but within that context things flowed. On the other hand, I would have far less interest in a story where aliens intervene throughout an AH for unspecified reasons at unpredictable times, because that smacks too much of deus ex machina.

Likewise, I prefer AH where no-one can tell what the author's political or religious views are. If a story is obviously motivated by an author's views - be they Marxist or Christian, atheist or futurist, or anything else - I lose interest very quickly. To take another published AH example, Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes series has many flaws, but for me its biggest problem was how it was so obviously motivated by Harrison's hate-on for the British that it was completely boring to read.

In my own AHs, I try my best to make sure that readers don't even know what my political or religious views are. (Readers may know my views from occasional comments in the off-topic forums; but not within the story itself.)

So short version: supernatural premise is fine, using random unexplainable supernatural events to steer the ongoing narrative is not fine.
 
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One interesting example might be Machen's experience in writing The Bowmen, in which he wrote a fictional story in which phantom bowmen from Agincourt arrive to assist the BEF in 1914.

I think Turtledove's "Ils ne passeront pas" from his Counting Up, Counting Down anthology is meant to reference this myth: French soldiers witness the Seven Trumpets from the Book of Revelations appear at the Battle of Verdun--although they assume that they've been driven mad by poison gas, and that the Trumpets are actually German weapons.
 
Paranormal stuff in alternate history has been going on for yonks now - I dun one too , so I can't say "no, what a terrible idea!" A lot of fantastical fiction is also how people got introduced to alternate history, like It's A Wonderful Life, Star Trek's Mirrorverse, various children's cartoons going "what if the baddies had won/goodie was baddie", Marvel's What If and DC's Elseworlds comics etc. Whether you like that or like more realistic changes is personal preference.

I think it'd be a problem if you thought you were watching or reading a 'realistic' alternate history and then something unambigiously paranormal showed up without warning. You were reading an alternate history about the thirties and then suddenly a strongman who can leap tall buildings picks up a car, or a 1996-set political AH turns into an Independence Day fanfic, or suddenly there's a vision from God and he intervened to stop your guy being killed by the SS-EIRE. It clashes too much.

(To be fair if you're a believer in God or some occult practices or whatever, you might take a different view since you already believe this fits in our actually real world.)
 
I have written a story where the pod is centuries bc so Christianity and Islam dont happen. That come from my world view that jesus and Muhammad were men whose ideas emerged as a product of their time.

To a believer this is obviously obsurd. Those ideas emerged because god wanted to tell them and he'd find a way regardless. I have read a timeline where God takes an active role in things because it was set in the old testament where the writer belived he did that sort of thing and so it was a bit of period accurate colour.

I will eventually a story where the pod is that vodun works but that comes from my judgement call that in otl it doesn't so that things will be different if so. Others will disagree.
 
I think if you are going to write an ISOT, you might as well go all the way and add some more implausibly random things.

I don't think you should use them as escape chute for plot problems, just as set dressing.
 
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I think an interesting study is Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series, which to some extent prefigures Alan Moore's better known League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The basic idea is that Van Helsing & Harker fail to stop the Count, who promptly begins turning members of the establishment into Vampires and the book opens a decade later with Prince-Consort Vlad Dracul the real power in Victorian Britain. A host other characters from fictional works are present as well- Bill Sykes is a Whitechapel enforcer for Moriarty, for example.

So far, so preposterous.

However the series goes on to intertwine its cast of pastiche characters with an alternate twentieth century. World War One proceeds largely as scheduled, but in this timeline the spread of Vamprism gives the phrase 'Bloody Red Baron' an entirely new meaning. Transylvania becomes a long running geopolitical sore in much the same manner as Palestine and so forth.

Now, the focus of the books is absolutely on the gleeful absurdity of the horror black comedy. However, there's a fairly coherent and cogent alternate history that runs right through to the end of the twentieth century- close enough to our own to be recognisable, but well plotted enough that you could probably sketch out a timeline from the evidence in the books.

Would we classify it as AH here? No, probably not. But it shows that supernatural elements don't have to be kept entirely separate either.
 
I don't think, say, the presence of aliens in Worldwar by Harry Turtledove is a disqualification but I am pretty confident that aliens exist anyway. I think a more sceptical person would have a more discriminating view than I do.
 
As a couple others mentioned, consistency is important. I would extend that a bit The world-building needs to make sense. Napoleonic Europe with dragons, for example, doesn't make sense unless the dragons are a recent arrival. That doesn't mean I would automatically reject a story where the world-building doesn't make sense. If the plot and characters are strong enough, I can forgive world-building issues.
 
I mean manifestations of the supernatural, or the belief in them, certainly has real impacts on history. Take Constantine's dream, or the apparitions at Guadalupe, for example.

Now you could argue that sociological forces might have forced, say, the Christianization of the Roman elite or New Spain eventually, but the social fabric would be ever-so-slightly different.
 
Technically, the POD of my TL That Wacky Redhead could be interpreted as a psychic encounter with the spirit world, since it's a dream a character has about the ghost of her dead friend coming back to visit her. This is based on the person in question (Lucille Ball) having a similar dream IOTL involving the ghost of the same person (Carole Lombard) coming to visit her before and influencing another life-changing decision she made (to do I Love Lucy). I deliberately never answered the question as to whether or not it really was a spiritual encounter, but nobody ever asked anyway, alas.
 
In Alternate History, how this manifests might vary: the presence and alleged effectiveness of the I-Ching in The Man in the High Castle, ISOTs, the possible presence of fairies in Pavane, reincarnation and the interludes in the Bardo in Years of Rice and Salt, stuff with vampires and dragons and whatnot, etc.
Another example is Harry Harrison's The Hammer and the Cross trilogy, in which the Norse gods turn out to be real. Personally I felt that it detracted from the story.

Now while the existence or non-existence of supernatural forces is a matter of personal belief, there's no doubt that people taking that belief seriously has had a large impact on history, and as such is perfectly suitable as a topic of AH. I personally like to read about alternate religions that have been carefully fleshed out and sound plausible, such as those created by @Jared in LORAG.

WIAF also features invented religions such as Younghusband's Fellowship and Scriabin's Ascentism, as well as cults that in OTL failed to take off in a big way such as Burkhanism (all three of which are mentioned in @Bruno's novella "The Road to Yakutia"), and I also intend to explore the possibility of the myth of Agartha becoming more widely-known. In OTL the Soviets did take it seriously enough to reportedly send expeditions to the Altai mountains in order to find the entrance to said subterranean world.
 
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