More on Creating Alternate Histories
There are a couple of schools of thought about the effects of a change in the stream of history. The first is that from the moment of change everything is different. The other is that there is a momentum to historical events, and that the changes will appear over time. Call this the inertia of Temporal Events.
I hold with the second one, and here's why: take the causation event (CE) for the Gina Stone stories, specifically Lord Sackville's Charge. In the first school, a king on an island in the Sulawesi Sea (on the other side of the world) does things different from that moment on because Lord George died and the French Army was destroyed. How would he know, would he care, and what would this do to the range of options open to him? I maintain that there would be no change made by that king, at least right away. Think of it as a domino effect. There will be ripples of decisions made because of Lord George and the men with him who died on August 1, 1759 who would have been alive in our world/history. But that domino effect takes time to reach the Sulawesi Sea.
Another name for the first one is The Butterfly Effect. Forcing a butterfly to change course in the mountains of Mexico means you get some effect on the other side of the world.
A simpler way to put it: everyone who was alive and not impacted by Lord George's Charge are still alive, and the decisions they make in every day life are still the same...for a time. As the ripples circle the globe these changes will appear. George Washington will still be a planter of note, and he will serve with distinction on the frontier. But peace breaking out in 1760 will give him different choices...in 1760 and afterward. The decisions he makes in the American wilderness in September of 1759 will still be the same as in our world.
Now what of other changes? One of the arguments you get with alternate history is that whatever changes you ring in must be linked to your CE. Yes...and no. Having Queen Victoria die in childbirth in 1847 is not required by the death of Lord George Sackville in 1759. But the English succession was fixed on George III (ascending to the throne in 1760). And if we assume Prinny (a logical assumption), then we can also assume Victoria will be around as that's the way things were shaping up. We could argue that this isn't necessarily so, but here I invoke the storyteller's privilege: I want it to work this way for purposes of the story I'm going to tell.
This last is the most important point of this post. If I am a historian involved in speculation, then everything has to flow logically. If I am a storyteller, then after the CE I can play with the history the way I want it. But I must do so in a logical and consistent manner. A French Revolution of some kind was going to break out; the situation in France almost guaranteed it. But the wars that followed can be played with. There might not have been a Napoleon Bonaparte, though it is likely there would have been somebody with his political ambitions (I think it unlikely that that person would have had Napoleon's military ability). And you might not have had the asinine Foreign Secretary running around unleashed in 1814. In fact, for story purposes you could have the French settle down in 1803 or 1804 without a monarchy or an empire. What then? More speculation.
Speaking of that, what of another incident? The Battle of Brienne in 1814. Napoleon's troops came within a whisker of capturing or killing Prussian Field Marshal Blucher and his Chief of Staff Gneisenau. Without his single-minded determination to seize Paris, the Allies might not have been able to succeed in the 1814 campaign. This is even better than 1815 where some historians play with Napoleon beating Wellington. A better scenario would have been Blucher getting captured at the Battle of Ligny--he was ridden over by French cavalry--leaving a general who flat out did not trust the English and Wellington in charge and if in command would have headed for the Rhine as fast as he could. Wellington, knowing the Prussians were retreating, would not have stood on the ridge at Mont St. Jean, but would have headed for the boats as fast as possible.
A third incident? What if an enterprising officer had pushed inland despite orders at Suvla Bay in 1915? He would have seized the high ground in the Gallipoli peninsula, most likely cutting of Liman von Sanders army facing the Anzacs and the French/British troops at the tip of the peninsula. Given that, it's very likely the British could have passed the Dardenelles and the whole history of WW1 (and what happened after) would have changed.
While this is fun, you have to follow several rules. First, make sure that this change could have occurred. The courier carrying orders to Sackville that halted his advance was the only one who practically rode his horse into the ground, and apparently this was the only time he did so. What if he didn't do that this time? Sackville would have been on the unprotected flank of the French Army, with fatal results to the latter (though not necessarily to Sackville). In 1814 the French could have sent a peletoon (platoon) to secure the rear of the chateau Blucher and Gneisenau were using, just like they did several other times in similar situations earlier in the wars. In 1915 an uppity and pushy officer could have ordered his men inland against the nearly non-existent Turkish opposition; there were plenty around, and all that was needed was one who trusted what he saw rather than orders he could see were wrong.
Second, you need to sit down and bat back and forth ideas, preferably with several people. Don't be afraid to be creative; by the way, the more historically informed these people are, the better.
Third, of course, is to either write your speculative paper, or, if a storyteller, now look at what you need to make the story you're writing come out. Here is where you actually have free license. And don't forget that along the way there will be several other possibilities that show up for you. File those, and get on with your story.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Creating Worlds/Settings/Histories
I've touched on this before, but the other night I was talking with some people in the writing group who wanted to know how I built a complete world. They were referring to the city of New Essex for Counterfeit Line and Different World.
First I referred them to: http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1148 for a primer on creating a world for role-playing. This works for novel writing as well. But aside from that....
I start by looking at the story I'm writing. Let's take the Gina Stone stories mentioned above. The portal opens to several alternate history destinations. These were: 1943 Pacific Island, 1895 (New Essex), 1702 Bavaria, 1360 France, ~450 AD Central Bulgaria, ~1900 BC Egypt, ~6000 BC Himalayas, ~25000 BC Brazil. I took these and established a brief footnote for each one (I didn't need to do more if the story didn't need it).
1943 Pacific Island - a very small island in a coral lagoon. There's a crashed US plane on the island. The island acquires a Japanese garrison. This is fairly vanilla, and I didn't need to do much more. The bad guy has a run-in with the Japanese and barely escapes with his life.
1702 Bavaria - part of the War of the Spanish Succession. No change needed. I may still use this.
1360 France - in a ruined castle. No change needed, though I refer to it in passing several times. The Medieval warming period has continued in this alternate timeline (ending a century later). Important to remind the characters of the importance of disease control (the 1360's saw the second wave of the Black Death in our world).
450 Bulgaria - I needed a lush area that I could instead show as somewhat run down. No other change needed.
6000 BC Himalayas - I wanted the picture of the ice sheet from some mountain, that was all. No change needed.
25000 BC Brazil - in the original story the bad guy set up a drug growing operation here. I might still use this idea as it will be one that nobody can track (or at least so they think).
1900 BC Egypt - this was the 12th Dynasty, and I needed a lot of nitty-gritty of daily life. I did a lot of digging into Pharaohs, and dropped a couple more in. This was important to the plot. But I didn't need anything more as Egypt didn't change that much for quite some time.
1895 New Essex - I pondered how there would be no US. The key point obviously had to be that there was no American Revolution. Now a lot of the seeds of the revolution had been sown in the preceding decades. The British viewed the colonies as a source of raw materials to feed the growing industrialization of England. There was also that 'Lord and Master' strain that crops up in the English attitude toward the rest of the world, especially their colonies. This attitude exacerbated the tensions between Parliament and the Colonies.
I began looking at incidents and individuals who helped bring about the rupture. Time after time Lord George Germaine (originally Lord George Sackville) kept showing up. He had been cashiered after the Battle of Minden (August 1, 1759) for not charging the French with his cavalry. Piers Macksey has done a wonderful book on the incident The Coward of Minden. It has to be read along with His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany During the Seven Years War by Lt. General Sir Reginald Savory. There was more to the incident than just not charging. Sackville was where he couldn't see the French. There was also a confusion of orders, and so on. Read it, the whole thing is fascinating.
So the simple solution was to remove Lord George Germaine (a favorite of the then Prince of Wales and future King George III). Why not have him die heroically leading his men in the climactic attack at Minden, destroying the French Army of Lower Germany? Taken with the loss of Canada at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, the destruction of the French fleet that year, and the loss of India, this would knock the French out of the Seven Years War, and probably end the war in Central Germany as the Austrians would have no French ally to tie down the British paid army.
All right, now one more thing: several leading members of Parliament suggested consulting with the colonies on their own defense and letting them find the money rather than simply raising taxes. Germaine had opposed this and managed to kill it. Now he's not there. And the taxes of the time had to be paid in coin (which was scarce). Now we don't have that, the colonies contribute to their own defense, and there is no Revolution.
The rest was simply copying what happened in Canada 80 years later. Except I had to have a growing of the West Coast. That was simple, actually. Instead of subduing the Plains Indians, the British elected to recognize them sort of like they did in India. So no settlers on the Great Plains. Instead you get them in parts of the Rocky Mountains and along the coast (which the Spanish/Mexicans had been settling anyway). And so the British move in (by the way, this almost makes it necessary for Texas to be independent -- think about it and you'll see why).
Now where are the places to settle? Where there's good sea-borne navigation. Where are the cities on the West Coast? At the mouth of rivers, and at natural harbors. Tacoma and Seattle both have great natural harbors, but Seattle has some problems (that were solved by the railroad). So stand that on its head a little. Which site has great communications into the interior, a natural harbor, and would be easy for the railroad to get to (the railroad would be pushing up from Vancouver on the Columbia). The Tacoma area actually comes to mind (as does the Everett area). So put cities at both places. Tacoma would benefit from the railroad first, so it grows sooner/faster. But I chose to put it on the flats around Puyallup and Fife where building is easier, rather than on the Pt. Defiance peninsula.
What about the social customs? To be different I didn't have Queen Victoria on the thrown for more than 10-12 years. She actually had five assassination attempts against her (which I didn't know), but she spent a lot of time being pregnant, at least those first few years. And women died in childbirth, even with the best medical care. That meant a Regency for Edward, and possibly an Edward VIII on the throne by 1895, but with a considerably lessened influence from Albert.
George McDonald Fraser, in his Flashman novels, pointed out that the Victorian attitudes and customs were showing up in the 1840s even without Victoria and Albert, and that Albert was the prig. Accepting this, and without Victoria, I could copy most of the Victorian world, but leave out the more irksome aspects (such as covering piano legs). In this I was helped by a lot of comments from a grandmother of mine who remembered the society she grew up in.
The physical layout of the town was the least work. I simply took a map of the Fife/Puyallup area and imposed a grid. The rest were details, like what color the houses were, whether the streets in certain parts of town were paved, and what life looked/smelled/sounded like in certain neighborhoods.
Simple, really, and most of this was worked out on the fly, not before-hand.
I've touched on this before, but the other night I was talking with some people in the writing group who wanted to know how I built a complete world. They were referring to the city of New Essex for Counterfeit Line and Different World.
First I referred them to: http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1148 for a primer on creating a world for role-playing. This works for novel writing as well. But aside from that....
I start by looking at the story I'm writing. Let's take the Gina Stone stories mentioned above. The portal opens to several alternate history destinations. These were: 1943 Pacific Island, 1895 (New Essex), 1702 Bavaria, 1360 France, ~450 AD Central Bulgaria, ~1900 BC Egypt, ~6000 BC Himalayas, ~25000 BC Brazil. I took these and established a brief footnote for each one (I didn't need to do more if the story didn't need it).
1943 Pacific Island - a very small island in a coral lagoon. There's a crashed US plane on the island. The island acquires a Japanese garrison. This is fairly vanilla, and I didn't need to do much more. The bad guy has a run-in with the Japanese and barely escapes with his life.
1702 Bavaria - part of the War of the Spanish Succession. No change needed. I may still use this.
1360 France - in a ruined castle. No change needed, though I refer to it in passing several times. The Medieval warming period has continued in this alternate timeline (ending a century later). Important to remind the characters of the importance of disease control (the 1360's saw the second wave of the Black Death in our world).
450 Bulgaria - I needed a lush area that I could instead show as somewhat run down. No other change needed.
6000 BC Himalayas - I wanted the picture of the ice sheet from some mountain, that was all. No change needed.
25000 BC Brazil - in the original story the bad guy set up a drug growing operation here. I might still use this idea as it will be one that nobody can track (or at least so they think).
1900 BC Egypt - this was the 12th Dynasty, and I needed a lot of nitty-gritty of daily life. I did a lot of digging into Pharaohs, and dropped a couple more in. This was important to the plot. But I didn't need anything more as Egypt didn't change that much for quite some time.
1895 New Essex - I pondered how there would be no US. The key point obviously had to be that there was no American Revolution. Now a lot of the seeds of the revolution had been sown in the preceding decades. The British viewed the colonies as a source of raw materials to feed the growing industrialization of England. There was also that 'Lord and Master' strain that crops up in the English attitude toward the rest of the world, especially their colonies. This attitude exacerbated the tensions between Parliament and the Colonies.
I began looking at incidents and individuals who helped bring about the rupture. Time after time Lord George Germaine (originally Lord George Sackville) kept showing up. He had been cashiered after the Battle of Minden (August 1, 1759) for not charging the French with his cavalry. Piers Macksey has done a wonderful book on the incident The Coward of Minden. It has to be read along with His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany During the Seven Years War by Lt. General Sir Reginald Savory. There was more to the incident than just not charging. Sackville was where he couldn't see the French. There was also a confusion of orders, and so on. Read it, the whole thing is fascinating.
So the simple solution was to remove Lord George Germaine (a favorite of the then Prince of Wales and future King George III). Why not have him die heroically leading his men in the climactic attack at Minden, destroying the French Army of Lower Germany? Taken with the loss of Canada at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, the destruction of the French fleet that year, and the loss of India, this would knock the French out of the Seven Years War, and probably end the war in Central Germany as the Austrians would have no French ally to tie down the British paid army.
All right, now one more thing: several leading members of Parliament suggested consulting with the colonies on their own defense and letting them find the money rather than simply raising taxes. Germaine had opposed this and managed to kill it. Now he's not there. And the taxes of the time had to be paid in coin (which was scarce). Now we don't have that, the colonies contribute to their own defense, and there is no Revolution.
The rest was simply copying what happened in Canada 80 years later. Except I had to have a growing of the West Coast. That was simple, actually. Instead of subduing the Plains Indians, the British elected to recognize them sort of like they did in India. So no settlers on the Great Plains. Instead you get them in parts of the Rocky Mountains and along the coast (which the Spanish/Mexicans had been settling anyway). And so the British move in (by the way, this almost makes it necessary for Texas to be independent -- think about it and you'll see why).
Now where are the places to settle? Where there's good sea-borne navigation. Where are the cities on the West Coast? At the mouth of rivers, and at natural harbors. Tacoma and Seattle both have great natural harbors, but Seattle has some problems (that were solved by the railroad). So stand that on its head a little. Which site has great communications into the interior, a natural harbor, and would be easy for the railroad to get to (the railroad would be pushing up from Vancouver on the Columbia). The Tacoma area actually comes to mind (as does the Everett area). So put cities at both places. Tacoma would benefit from the railroad first, so it grows sooner/faster. But I chose to put it on the flats around Puyallup and Fife where building is easier, rather than on the Pt. Defiance peninsula.
What about the social customs? To be different I didn't have Queen Victoria on the thrown for more than 10-12 years. She actually had five assassination attempts against her (which I didn't know), but she spent a lot of time being pregnant, at least those first few years. And women died in childbirth, even with the best medical care. That meant a Regency for Edward, and possibly an Edward VIII on the throne by 1895, but with a considerably lessened influence from Albert.
George McDonald Fraser, in his Flashman novels, pointed out that the Victorian attitudes and customs were showing up in the 1840s even without Victoria and Albert, and that Albert was the prig. Accepting this, and without Victoria, I could copy most of the Victorian world, but leave out the more irksome aspects (such as covering piano legs). In this I was helped by a lot of comments from a grandmother of mine who remembered the society she grew up in.
The physical layout of the town was the least work. I simply took a map of the Fife/Puyallup area and imposed a grid. The rest were details, like what color the houses were, whether the streets in certain parts of town were paved, and what life looked/smelled/sounded like in certain neighborhoods.
Simple, really, and most of this was worked out on the fly, not before-hand.
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