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Discuss this article featuring @SpanishSpy, @Coiler, @SenatorChickpea, @carturo222 and Alison Morton here.
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Panel Discussion: Guns and Butter - Part 2
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
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This was a really interesting discussion to be part of.
I hope the readers will forgive the meandering nature of the chat; we were finding our way through the format a bit. But I think there's some valuable stuff here, and I'd like to thank Gary and Alex for making it happen.
I hope the readers will forgive the meandering nature of the chat; we were finding our way through the format a bit. But I think there's some valuable stuff here, and I'd like to thank Gary and Alex for making it happen.
- Pronouns
- he/him
This was a really interesting discussion to be part of.
I hope the readers will forgive the meandering nature of the chat; we were finding our way through the format a bit. But I think there's some valuable stuff here, and I'd like to thank Gary and Alex for making it happen.
95% Alex, 5% Gary. My role was saying 'yes, that idea sounds good, please go for it' and then editing the article Alex sent to me (so I am responsible for the formatting in terms splitting it into two parts, colour coding the text etc, but the actual discussion, in terms of picking people and topic was organised entirely by Alex.)
I just cunningly post all the threads on here so it looks like I have far more of a role than I do.
I'm glad the members of the panel seem to have enjoyed it. Certainly I've enjoyed reading it, I don't agree with some/all of the conclusions but I think there's some interesting takes.
As a proof of concept for a new type of article, I'm pretty happy with it and I'd love to set up some more over the next year or so. Whether that's Alex chairing again or me doing so or someone else entirely.
One bit jumping out, @SpanishSpy 's point:
which, thanks to the influence of Pratchett, strikes me as narrative, we understand things through stories so we've come up with a structure that turns history into a story with a clear moral and good & bad things to do and a presumed ending. But the complaint of the timelines, the second-generation racecars as @Coiler puts it, are complained about in the discussion (and elsewhere) for not having stories and narrative, they've forgotten to include that part. (If the timeline is just a thought exercise, "what if these things happened", that's one thing because it's not meant as narrative, but many online AH timelines are trying to lean a certain way or be 'cool', which puts them under story rules)
A possible counterargument to Arturo’s point would be that political and military history have easily recognizable ‘rules.’ Politically and socially, Marxist thought is probably the most developed set of explanations, and one with many adherents in the community. Beyond that, you get a lot of competing schools of thought, from Whig history to nationalist histories and many other ways of thinking. What these all assume is that there are principles underlying human history, and that they can provide ‘rules’ for the ‘game’ that is allohistorical speculation.
which, thanks to the influence of Pratchett, strikes me as narrative, we understand things through stories so we've come up with a structure that turns history into a story with a clear moral and good & bad things to do and a presumed ending. But the complaint of the timelines, the second-generation racecars as @Coiler puts it, are complained about in the discussion (and elsewhere) for not having stories and narrative, they've forgotten to include that part. (If the timeline is just a thought exercise, "what if these things happened", that's one thing because it's not meant as narrative, but many online AH timelines are trying to lean a certain way or be 'cool', which puts them under story rules)
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But the complaint of the timelines, the second-generation racecars as @Coiler puts it, are complained about in the discussion (and elsewhere) for not having stories and narrative, they've forgotten to include that part. (If the timeline is just a thought exercise, "what if these things happened", that's one thing because it's not meant as narrative, but many online AH timelines are trying to lean a certain way or be 'cool', which puts them under story rules)
I always worry that when we talk about this sort of thing that we (accidentally) cross into 'why are you having fun, why aren't you doing the productive thing' bit where awful parents yell at their kids playing sports to tackle and keep discipline and not just run around aimlessly. Which is the exact thing that kills any love of sport.
Like not everything can or should be marketable. It'd be a sad world if you couldn't just bullshit on a forum with your mates and not worry if anyone else likes it or, god forbid, if its of commercial worth.
But I suppose if the question 'how can we appeal to more people' then you have to assume that that's an implicit aim, not because it definitely is but because if it isn't, the conversation is pointless, so you might as well pitch at the people who are aiming for that. And not the people who are just as you say doing thought exercises.
FriendlyGhost
Haunting history in a good way
A very interesting discussion to read - thank you to all of the participants (and I see that Arturo Serrano has joined the forum - welcome @carturo222).
I now have to think about how to apply what's been said to my own vignette writing. Though, on a very quick review, I don't think any of my entries to the monthly VC here have been explicitly about war and only around half have referenced war/conflict, so maybe I'm partly there already - albeit my writing's of a much lower standard than that of the panel members!
ps @Gary Oswald - I think there's a link missing at the start of the article, where you have 'Part 1 of this panel is here and should be read first.'
I now have to think about how to apply what's been said to my own vignette writing. Though, on a very quick review, I don't think any of my entries to the monthly VC here have been explicitly about war and only around half have referenced war/conflict, so maybe I'm partly there already - albeit my writing's of a much lower standard than that of the panel members!
ps @Gary Oswald - I think there's a link missing at the start of the article, where you have 'Part 1 of this panel is here and should be read first.'
- Location
- Over the rainbow
I'm tempted to write an extended "In defence of timelines" screed at this point, but will save that for another day.which, thanks to the influence of Pratchett, strikes me as narrative, we understand things through stories so we've come up with a structure that turns history into a story with a clear moral and good & bad things to do and a presumed ending. But the complaint of the timelines, the second-generation racecars as @Coiler puts it, are complained about in the discussion (and elsewhere) for not having stories and narrative, they've forgotten to include that part. (If the timeline is just a thought exercise, "what if these things happened", that's one thing because it's not meant as narrative, but many online AH timelines are trying to lean a certain way or be 'cool', which puts them under story rules)
The short version is that in my far from humble opinion, timelines are a different medium to narrative. Criticising them for lacking narrative or characters or a literary arc is like criticising a sculpture for lacking the same things - that's not the point of the medium. Timelines aren't to everyone's taste, and they can be done well or poorly, of course. But a well-written timeline can do things which simply don't work in a narrative format. When done well, they are a way to explore the broad scope of a changed world in a manner which simply doesn't work in narrative format, and which if they were attempted would be deemed worse than a return to the old sci-fi days of infodumps galore.
I've no more interest than the panel in a timeline which is nothing but an exploration of casualty counts, but take Look to the West or Bronze Age New World or Lands of Ice and Mice or any of a dozen others I could name off the top of my head and tell me that nothing worthwhile can be achieved in the timeline format.
I've no more interest than the panel in a timeline which is nothing but an exploration of casualty counts, but take Look to the West or Bronze Age New World or Lands of Ice and Mice or any of a dozen others I could name off the top of my head and tell me that nothing worthwhile can be achieved in the timeline format.
And a properly built race car can do things that no "normal" model with two rows or more of seats and ample cargo room could. I'm generally a timeline format critic, but even I don't disagree with your point.
take Look to the West or Bronze Age New World or Lands of Ice and Mice or any of a dozen others I could name off the top of my head and tell me that nothing worthwhile can be achieved in the timeline format.
I agree timelines like LTTW are showing the strength of the format, but I consider ones like that to be narratives: there's characters, running plots, themes, all the bits of a story in LTTW. It's a different format than prose fiction that requires different skills and works in a different way, but still telling a narrative.
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
I always worry that when we talk about this sort of thing that we (accidentally) cross into 'why are you having fun, why aren't you doing the productive thing' bit where awful parents yell at their kids playing sports to tackle and keep discipline and not just run around aimlessly. Which is the exact thing that kills any love of sport.
Like not everything can or should be marketable. It'd be a sad world if you couldn't just bullshit on a forum with your mates and not worry if anyone else likes it or, god forbid, if its of commercial worth.
But I suppose if the question 'how can we appeal to more people' then you have to assume that that's an implicit aim, not because it definitely is but because if it isn't, the conversation is pointless, so you might as well pitch at the people who are aiming for that. And not the people who are just as you say doing thought exercises.
For me, as someone with half his family from a recently colonized country, it boils down to a fundamentally moral issue. In my mind, it is simply not right to write from the perspective of powerful countries without considering the cost enough. It doesn't have to be every incidence of such, but when that's the only way you engage with history, it ends up validating deeply unpleasant lines of thought.
When alternate history is done solely through the lens of the powerful, it effectively says that the lens of the powerful is the only legitimate lens. I'm fond of saying that no country ever becomes big by being nice. The United States is a great power because of its large-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing of its indigenous population. Britain is a great power through the murderousness of its empire, and the same with the French. Spain and Portugal are great powers through the pillaging of the Americas. Russia is a great power through the conquest of Siberia, the oppression of Balts and Ukrainians and Poles, and the extermination of Circassians. Japan is a great power through rampage through all Asia. China is a great power through murderous expansion westward.
What this lens does is imply, when not counterbalanced sufficiently, that the only valuable view of history is that enabled through mass graves. You can't simply be alive to be worth thinking about; you have to kill and kill and kill to deserve being thought about in the future. This then goes on to imply that the losers of a war were somehow insufficiently human, somehow deserving of their fate. It ultimately ends up ignoring the humanity of those who lost, in one way or another. It's why I found James Nealon's Confederacy of Fenians to be so offensive.
In AH discussions of World War II, have you ever seen it mentioned that for every American who died in the Philippines, a hundred Filipinos died? Do you ever see mention that the fall of Corregidor and the Bataan (a name, I will note, is properly pronounced with three syllables, not two) Death March were Filipino experiences, as well as American? (I had a relative who disappeared in the latter). When discussing North Africa, such as El Alamein or Kasserine Pass, have you ever seen mention of the locals?
I'm tempted to write an extended "In defence of timelines" screed at this point, but will save that for another day.
The short version is that in my far from humble opinion, timelines are a different medium to narrative. Criticising them for lacking narrative or characters or a literary arc is like criticising a sculpture for lacking the same things - that's not the point of the medium. Timelines aren't to everyone's taste, and they can be done well or poorly, of course. But a well-written timeline can do things which simply don't work in a narrative format. When done well, they are a way to explore the broad scope of a changed world in a manner which simply doesn't work in narrative format, and which if they were attempted would be deemed worse than a return to the old sci-fi days of infodumps galore.
I've no more interest than the panel in a timeline which is nothing but an exploration of casualty counts, but take Look to the West or Bronze Age New World or Lands of Ice and Mice or any of a dozen others I could name off the top of my head and tell me that nothing worthwhile can be achieved in the timeline format.
I agree that timelines can be done well; I particularly like D. G. Valdron's Axis of Andes and D. F. Pellegrino's Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire, and also find much to like in Jon Kacer's Festung Europa, Pablo Portillo's Shadow of Montreux, and Paul Hynes' Decisive Darkness duology (I regret to say I haven't read Lands of Red and Gold yet, but I have liked Jared's writing before, particularly his story in Gary's anthology). What they all succeed at masterfully is anecdotes - they provide the desperately needed human touch to grand historical narratives. Unfortunately, it is the sort of thing that all too many writers forget about.
The timeline as a narrative form is heavily at risk to doing what the rvbomally essay I linked to in the talk discusses - the blunting of historical atrocity by abstraction. If this is the only way AH writers engage with history, it is corrosive to empathy and reinforces what I'm tempted to call 'conqueror's bias.'
On some level, there's a part of me that is appalled by the notion that my great-grandfather, a resistance fighter against the Japanese, is only a digit on a wikibox.
On some level, there's a part of me that is appalled by the notion that my great-grandfather, a resistance fighter against the Japanese, is only a digit on a wikibox.
Well said.
From a mostly opposite perspective, I don't think there's that much room for audacity in wikiboxes. It just makes even the most ridiculous divergences seem flat, IMO.
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
I have rather mixed feelings.
Alternate history is about alternate worlds – either how the world we knew changes as the effects of the POD sink in or set in worlds a few years after the POD. One can easily write a book where D-Day fails on the first page, then commit the rest of the book to exploring how the world shakes out with France in German hands for longer; one can also start the book in 1950, with the Russians in control of France and the Red Army massing on the shores for an invasion of Britain. The latter tend to be divided into either stories – one following the invasion of Britain – or explorations of the world that exists ten years after the POD.
I have mixed feelings about plausibility in the latter. On one hand, a German invasion and conquest of the UK in 1940 is unlikely to happen; on the other, the 1950s world does offer plenty of room for both stories and exploration.
But back to the topic at hand, war is a simple and obvious way to show how the world changed. They tend to be blunt interments messing up history, rather than more subtle points that are harder to follow and argue. For example, history would be changed in ways both simple and obvious if Argentina won the Falklands War, but it would be harder to say what would happen if the war never took place at all. It is easy to follow the logic behind a post-ACW Confederate Victory timeline, but – again – harder to grasp the thinking of a timeline where the war never took place at all.
That said, war or the threat of war also drives the story, in that it presents something that drives the character’s actions. An invasion gives the characters something to fight or flee; a conquest, as noted above, reshapes the world very obviously. It also presents the stakes. It’s easier to follow a character trying to catch the Russian spies before they get into place to take down the British defences, before the invasion begins, than it is when the stakes are lower. I don’t think it matters, if one is writing romantic fiction, if the story is set in OTL or ATL. The world isn’t the point of a book where Person A meets Person B – although it might be interesting to rewrite Gone With The Wind in a Confederate Victory world.
Which is a bit of a ramble, so … <shrug>.
I enjoyed reading the discussion. There are some points I might make – for example, the vast majority of people simply do NOT have any effect on history at all; others often have their actions more sharply circumscribed than we imagine. It is easy to condemn Cleopatra for forming very personal relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony – there is no evidence for any other men in her life – but Cleopatra had very little military power of her own and if she didn’t keep the Romans sweet, she was dead. The people who wield power get most of the attention because they’re the ones who mattered (and continue to matter).
I do like the idea of ordinary people, and I do try to include them in my writings, but they’re not always the interesting ones. I mean … Wesley Crusher was a poorly conceived, poorly written and poorly acted character, but the real problem is that he’s boring.
To be honest, I don’t think AH has lost much, if anything, from focusing on war. War has been part of human society from the very beginning of our history.
Overall, if you do another one of these, I’d be very interested in taking part.
Chris
Alternate history is about alternate worlds – either how the world we knew changes as the effects of the POD sink in or set in worlds a few years after the POD. One can easily write a book where D-Day fails on the first page, then commit the rest of the book to exploring how the world shakes out with France in German hands for longer; one can also start the book in 1950, with the Russians in control of France and the Red Army massing on the shores for an invasion of Britain. The latter tend to be divided into either stories – one following the invasion of Britain – or explorations of the world that exists ten years after the POD.
I have mixed feelings about plausibility in the latter. On one hand, a German invasion and conquest of the UK in 1940 is unlikely to happen; on the other, the 1950s world does offer plenty of room for both stories and exploration.
But back to the topic at hand, war is a simple and obvious way to show how the world changed. They tend to be blunt interments messing up history, rather than more subtle points that are harder to follow and argue. For example, history would be changed in ways both simple and obvious if Argentina won the Falklands War, but it would be harder to say what would happen if the war never took place at all. It is easy to follow the logic behind a post-ACW Confederate Victory timeline, but – again – harder to grasp the thinking of a timeline where the war never took place at all.
That said, war or the threat of war also drives the story, in that it presents something that drives the character’s actions. An invasion gives the characters something to fight or flee; a conquest, as noted above, reshapes the world very obviously. It also presents the stakes. It’s easier to follow a character trying to catch the Russian spies before they get into place to take down the British defences, before the invasion begins, than it is when the stakes are lower. I don’t think it matters, if one is writing romantic fiction, if the story is set in OTL or ATL. The world isn’t the point of a book where Person A meets Person B – although it might be interesting to rewrite Gone With The Wind in a Confederate Victory world.
Which is a bit of a ramble, so … <shrug>.
I enjoyed reading the discussion. There are some points I might make – for example, the vast majority of people simply do NOT have any effect on history at all; others often have their actions more sharply circumscribed than we imagine. It is easy to condemn Cleopatra for forming very personal relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony – there is no evidence for any other men in her life – but Cleopatra had very little military power of her own and if she didn’t keep the Romans sweet, she was dead. The people who wield power get most of the attention because they’re the ones who mattered (and continue to matter).
I do like the idea of ordinary people, and I do try to include them in my writings, but they’re not always the interesting ones. I mean … Wesley Crusher was a poorly conceived, poorly written and poorly acted character, but the real problem is that he’s boring.
To be honest, I don’t think AH has lost much, if anything, from focusing on war. War has been part of human society from the very beginning of our history.
Overall, if you do another one of these, I’d be very interested in taking part.
Chris
heraclius
Well-known member
- Location
- New Forest, Hampshire, England, UK
A very interesting discussion, which brings up some of the points which I have thought over when writing AH since I was a student - and my own motivation for doing this as someone who 'doubles up' as a professional historian (and has long heard other professionals ridiculing the idea of AH having any value and being more than a 'game' or a 'waste of time'). I was being told off as a student by senior lecturers 40 years or so ago for thinking that AH, my private passion, was any use in Real Life when I dared to raise this in discussions or to think of putting 'What If things had gone differently - this could easily have happened, you can' t say that X happening was inevitable ' comments in my thesis. I thought that attitude incredibly patronising and narrow-minded then, and still do - and anything that encourages those interested in history or political . /military development to 'think the unthinkable' is to be encouraged. I was also influenced by a distrust of theories and 'inevitability'/ determinism, eg fashionable Marxist social historians, and see this as a useful route into interesting the more imaginative in AH. My entire 'Alternative History of Britain' published series with Pen and Sword Books, as well as the Sealion Roman and UK series, have been based on tearing up the determinist rule-book .
We need more of this sort of attitude and need to encourage this thinking, which may help future leaders not to be caught out by 'unexpected' events or to ignore the necessity of contingency planning - as we can now see from all those who were caught out by a Russian leader with an 'unfamiliar' mindset seeming to revert to 1950s (or 1850s) strategic behaviour. Our interests and our explorations are important - and showing and publicising this encourages more to join in, and to learn to think laterally and tear up the textbook 'rules' - which can help people to succeed in business too, cf the new tech pioneers. In that respect, promoting non-military aspects of CF and its timelines and narratives is of real importance, and shows that it is not just 'wargaming' by miltary enthusiasts - though I admit that I started off writing a lot more of my Alt Roman fiction based on military campaigns and kingly feuds as a teenager and only moved into other aspects of it all later. A matter of what appeals to different ages?
Widening the scope of the genre also brings in more participants - and those from non-elite viewpoints who have different priorities and can more easily do different sorts of fiction. Alison Morton's books are really important and inspiring to me in that line; the more unusual viewpoints and stories and the less 'Nazis win WW2' stories published the better in my opinion. That of course brings us up against the commercial logic - and the question of appealing to an existing market rather than widening the latter, which indie publishers can avoid easier than anyone controlled by the money men. (As someone of Welsh-Scots as well as English heritage growing up in SE England, with no non-English History in the then UK history curriculum, I was often impatient with the latter and my interests in trying out 'Welsh/ Romano-Briton survival not Anglo-Saxon conquest' ideas for S England was seen at school as weird!
Roll on further exploration of this...
We need more of this sort of attitude and need to encourage this thinking, which may help future leaders not to be caught out by 'unexpected' events or to ignore the necessity of contingency planning - as we can now see from all those who were caught out by a Russian leader with an 'unfamiliar' mindset seeming to revert to 1950s (or 1850s) strategic behaviour. Our interests and our explorations are important - and showing and publicising this encourages more to join in, and to learn to think laterally and tear up the textbook 'rules' - which can help people to succeed in business too, cf the new tech pioneers. In that respect, promoting non-military aspects of CF and its timelines and narratives is of real importance, and shows that it is not just 'wargaming' by miltary enthusiasts - though I admit that I started off writing a lot more of my Alt Roman fiction based on military campaigns and kingly feuds as a teenager and only moved into other aspects of it all later. A matter of what appeals to different ages?
Widening the scope of the genre also brings in more participants - and those from non-elite viewpoints who have different priorities and can more easily do different sorts of fiction. Alison Morton's books are really important and inspiring to me in that line; the more unusual viewpoints and stories and the less 'Nazis win WW2' stories published the better in my opinion. That of course brings us up against the commercial logic - and the question of appealing to an existing market rather than widening the latter, which indie publishers can avoid easier than anyone controlled by the money men. (As someone of Welsh-Scots as well as English heritage growing up in SE England, with no non-English History in the then UK history curriculum, I was often impatient with the latter and my interests in trying out 'Welsh/ Romano-Briton survival not Anglo-Saxon conquest' ideas for S England was seen at school as weird!
Roll on further exploration of this...
Strategos' Risk
Active member
The timeline as a narrative form is heavily at risk to doing what the rvbomally essay I linked to in the talk discusses - the blunting of historical atrocity by abstraction. If this is the only way AH writers engage with history, it is corrosive to empathy and reinforces what I'm tempted to call 'conqueror's bias.'
On some level, there's a part of me that is appalled by the notion that my great-grandfather, a resistance fighter against the Japanese, is only a digit on a wikibox.
Damn, this is what I was getting at years ago, but I couldn't quite convey it!
Meta-Alternate History Theory: Excesses and Atrocities
I've been reading some nifty Kaiserreich AARs, and realized something: so much of AH seems semi-sanitized, even if when they contain massive amounts of war. In even the most elaborate of online timelines, there aren't many that mirror the stupidities, excesses, and atrocities we can easily see...
www.alternatehistory.com