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Alternate History General Discussion

A wiki-box is essentially a post in 'the story idea thread'. It's a shower thought.

Nothing more or nothing less than that.

Just occasionally you can do a bit more with them. The obvious example is creative use of red links. And one of the more interesting ones I saw was of a "vandalised" wikibox; I can't remember the exact context but it was some sort of insurrection/rebellion/crushed protest and the vandals had put literally every dead person on "their" side in the "Belligerents" section, which was obviously many times longer than the actual wikibox.

But I agree that they're not exactly a "true" story in and of themselves.
 
Just occasionally you can do a bit more with them. The obvious example is creative use of red links. And one of the more interesting ones I saw was of a "vandalised" wikibox; I can't remember the exact context but it was some sort of insurrection/rebellion/crushed protest and the vandals had put literally every dead person on "their" side in the "Belligerents" section, which was obviously many times longer than the actual wikibox.

But I agree that they're not exactly a "true" story in and of themselves.

The best wikiboxes come with a write-up that explains, elaborates from, or in some way subverts them. It can become something akin to the actual encyclopedia/history book style of AH when done that way, which makes sense since that's what wikipedia is in real life.
 
Something I wish that TLs with a recent POD do more to make as many changes as possible to the world. Not only would it be accurate with regards to butterflies but it would also be pretty interesting. Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire is a great example of this, but even TLs with a less dramatic/even more recent POD can do more to make changes in the world. Even with a POD in the early 2010s I think there is a lot of material which makes the world very different by alt-2021. Of course I'm not asking the world to look unrecognizable or dystopic (which may actually be a bit cheesy and implausible) by 2021 but it could look a lot more different. I'm not going to name names but I have noticed some TLs with a recent POD in which there aren't many changes outside of the domestic politics of a few countries.
 
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Something I wish that TLs with a recent POD do more to make as many changes as possible to the world. Not only would it be accurate with regards to butterflies but it would also be pretty interesting. Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire is a great example of this, but even TLs with a less dramatic/even more recent POD can do more to make changes in the world. Even with a POD in the early 2010s I think there is a lot of material which makes the world very different by alt-2021. Of course I'm not asking the world to look unrecognizable or dystopic (which may actually be a bit cheesy and implausible) by 2021 but it could look a lot more different. I'm not going to name names but I have noticed some TLs with a recent POD in which there aren't many changes outside of the domestic politics of a few countries.

On that note I think that a lot of "No 9/11" TLs are very limited in scope. That event was a very, very big event, and having it not happen just causes a lot of butterflies to emerge. I think the phenomenon which I think EdT talked about in which the farther you get away from a POD, the more likely you are to write fiction applies to how drastic a POD is. For example a minor POD like some by-election going the other way has you trying to be plausible for the first few decades before you begin to write fiction. But a POD like "Hitler dies in 1930", "No 9/11" and others are PODs with such a drastic change in the timeframe you are writing in that I think you only have to worry about plausibility for a few years before going into writing fiction. A no 9/11 TL really just has to be plausible up to 2005 before you veer into fiction territory, as you have to deal with an aging Saddam, Jihadist groups not coalescing under al-Qaeda as they did IOTL after 9/11, an emerging Russia and China probably having to deal with America a lot differently now that America isn't being embroiled in difficult foreign insurgencies, a lessened financial crisis along with no Iraq WMDs lie which probably has people be a lot more trustful of their government (which means less populism), how the Taliban would function as the years go by etc. Here we can only tell the basics about these topics and what changes could occur as a result but it is hard to know the nitty-gritty of them, and as such you can do whatever you want with it.
 
I guess part of the problem with the recent-TL's and not enough diversions is that because we're still living through it, it's harder to identify what's a cause of an event (so much will feel immutable). Add in the issue that you may not want to go "and then everything was brilliant/awful because the recent thing I hate/like didn't/did happen" - and we can certainly get a timeline like that - and overcorrect.
 
I was originally going to have off hand mentions in the Gould timeline to a Tom Harkin Presidency and Russia descending into a low level Civil War etc. But not have it be the main focus of the story.

But in general I think writing some time after the POD does allow for much more freedom and interesting choices. Like if your POD is in 1900, set the story in 1912 etc.
 
I think some years later is the traditional way (especially prose) and going year-by-year the online way, which predates the wiki-dates thing - If Gordon Banks Had Played does it, our own LTTW is doing it and Ed Thomas's stuff. A combination of showing the working and "see how off the rails things can get if you change just a few things".
 
When thinking about sporting timelines, the one that is though of first in 99% of cases is What If Gordon Banks Had Played?, which gets referenced here a lot (see, coincidentally, the post previous to this one!). Ultimately the POD is interesting because of the political changes that it has. Most PODs in sport aren't so influential, without a lot of reach - a warm, dry day in Bern in July 1954 might make the Hungarians win the World Cup, but as an author you'd have to stretch credibility to have that leading to a successful Hungarian Revolution, an early Soviet collapse and the end of history in 1962. Paul Gascoigne getting on the end of Alan Shearer's cross in 1996 is not going to let John Major ride a wave of optimism to a surprise election victory and Labour deciding their rightward shift hasn't delivered results and Margaret Beckett becoming the first female Labour Prime Minister in 2001.

Ultimately my question is, how much can a timeline about sport be interesting without causing major changes in the wider world?
 
Ultimately my question is, how much can a timeline about sport be interesting without causing major changes in the wider world?

I suppose my reply to that is to the same extent that any fiction about sport can be. I think the drama of sport is in itself interesting and can say things about humanity. I don't think it's easy but I think it's also quite hard to write about politics and war in a way that is insightful and interesting and relatable.

My two first AH vignettes I wrote were small pieces about journalists looking back at OTL giants remembered differently. One was about a Lincoln presidency where he prevents a Civil War by preventing the expansion of slavery and is seen as a symbol of white supremacy because slavery lingers into the 1930s within the existing slave states and one was about a Real Madrid who view themselves as the unlucky cursed underdogs because Bernabeu didn't survive the civil war and so Atletico remained the team of the regime.

Both were about how legends and reputation were down to circumstances as much as character. So much as either were interesting they both were. The fact that one was about sport and one about politics is largely immaterial.
 
A timeline about sport is going to be inherently interesting if you like the sport in question. Just as a timeline is going to inherently interesting if you're interested in the subject of the timeline. If you don't like it you won't bother with it.

There's shed loads of books on sport and they amazingly don't feel the need to justify themselves by putting everything in a political context.
 
I'd wonder why a sports AH would need to be AH and not a period sports story, but of course, then someone might ask "why is your fascist govt AH not about the real places" and I probably won't have a better justification then "yeah but I wanted to write about the thing that didn't happen happening"
 
A more of a general observation, but I do find it amusing when folks are like ‘If Callaghan Had Won In 1978, then Old Labour Would Still Exist and the Tories would crumble’ which ignores that A). Modernisation occurred across a number of the European Social Democratic Parties Which Included Accepting Monetarism as a concept B). The Early 80s were just as turbulent as the Late 70s and there’s still a chance that the Tories get in four years later just under a more Wetter Monetarist. Like there’s still a big possibility that Kinnock gets in after Labour loses an Early 80s election etc.

Additionally, Ann Clywd is surprising underused for someone who was hyped up as a potential Deputy candidate in 92’ with some support (I think she had the problem that the Deputy election was incredibly crowded and Beckett had more success gaining the combination of Feminist and Left/Soft Left votes that Clywd would have received).
 
A wiki-box is essentially a post in 'the story idea thread'. It's a shower thought.

Nothing more or nothing less than that.

This sort of insubstantial quality is why I almost never review online TLs on Fuldapocalypse. The "no online TL/uncommercialized fiction" rule started off as a way to avoid me getting sucked back into board drama (basically, most of the "Bad Fiction Spotlights" on my older blog were angry reactions to TLs on you-know-where-I specifically wanted to avoid them when making Fuldapocalypse). So I went with "only commercialized fiction" and it worked beautifully, especially after I widened the scope of the blog.

Much later, I felt I could do the occasional review of a TL (after all, there'd be room for one TL review alongside five reviews of commercialized cheap thrillers and four general opinion "essay" posts). I found, that with the exception of New Deal Coalition Retained, I didn't want to. Part of it is not wanting to punch down at too easy a target (after all, the term "historical fanfiction" is a perfect description of a lot of internet AH, and I've seen the bad feelings/attitude that results from sneering at low-tier fanfic).

But I also found that they just weren't offering much material to work with. I don't know if it's to it's "credit" that NDCR did, but I could write a very detailed review on it that I think I just couldn't with most other TLs. Even the ones that started the WW3 interest in me to begin with just look insubstantial and come across as just "they're triple-xeroxed, bland knockoffs of Hackett/RSR/Bond. Except for the Red Dawn ones, which are that AND trying to stuff the square peg of a conventional invasion of the continental US into the round hole of detailed, exact rivet counting". That's two sentences. I tried to expand but it just didn't feel like I needed more than that to talk about them.

This is also present in lots of other fiction, including stuff that's enjoyable. I can enjoy reading a formulaic-but-detailed "51% book", but it's very hard to review, and I felt a lot better once I no longer felt an obligation to review every single one of those that I read. But it went to new heights with online TLs. That, combined with me having tons of other stuff that is reviewable in a fun way has turned me off from reviewing them. And since my blog is about having fun, it's something I'm OK with.
 
I know Alternate History Steampunk and Dieselpunk are a thing but I’m surprised we haven’t seen a slew of Alternate History Cyberpunk and not even in the ‘The Cold War Never Ended Way’

I mean like, ‘Cybersyn but all of Britain is controlled by it’ or ‘Soviet Computer Administers Control Is Successful’ etc.

I’ve seen maybe one Alternate History Cyberpunk story, which was actually incredibly good.
 
I know Alternate History Steampunk and Dieselpunk are a thing but I’m surprised we haven’t seen a slew of Alternate History Cyberpunk and not even in the ‘The Cold War Never Ended Way’

I mean like, ‘Cybersyn but all of Britain is controlled by it’ or ‘Soviet Computer Administers Control Is Successful’ etc.

I’ve seen maybe one Alternate History Cyberpunk story, which was actually incredibly good.

Aren’t William Gibson’s recent novels essentially AH Cyberpunk? That’s the impression I’ve gotten, at least, based on reviews and a profile of him I read awhile back.
 
Aren’t William Gibson’s recent novels essentially AH Cyberpunk? That’s the impression I’ve gotten, at least, based on reviews and a profile of him I read awhile back.
Technically yes, but there more, recent alternate history. Usually related to the raise of a Trump in the digital age (with his most recent book being set in a ‘Hilary Won’ world).

I’m thinking more of earlier dates, so the Computer and Technological ideas of the 70s/80s and 90s carry on unabated etc.
 
Technically yes, but there more, recent alternate history. Usually related to the raise of a Trump in the digital age (with his most recent book being set in a ‘Hilary Won’ world).

I’m thinking more of earlier dates, so the Computer and Technological ideas of the 70s/80s and 90s carry on unabated etc.

Ah, I see. I wonder if it's simply a case that there's a generation of writers who haven't circled back around to it yet in the way that's happened with AH Steampunk or AH Dieselpunk?

That said, given the developments in computer technology (such as "d-mail") seen in the 80s season of For All Mankind, I wonder if season three's move into the 90s might feature a bit of a cyberpunk aesthetic?
 
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