"Low probability and stupid events in alternative history" Topic

In the real history there are many events that are either just unbelievably stupid or unbelievably lucky or both.

History doesn't have to be believable. Fiction does. How many such events can a fictional universe have before it unravels?

42?

3.14

Life?

More than one and I am throwing the book against the wall.
You are allowed one.

None. The standard for fiction is higher than the standard for reality. You are allowed one improbable event to establish the alternate timeline, but after that, the highest-ranking officer in the US Army cannot be a Spanish spy, the King of Greece cannot be bitten by a monkey and die in the middle of a campaign, and the German Army will not invade Russia while neglecting to provide winter clothing.
Actually, it's usually better to establish an alternate universe by replacing a real but improbable event with a more likely event which never happened.

I still can't believe Henry Tydder became King Henry VII of England. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Not sure if there is a set number, but a lot of alternate histories deal with things that were unlikely to happen, but I think they can still be readable. Pretty much any alternate history having Nazi Germany win World War II and conquer the U.S. is stretching the realm of believability. The Nazis didn't have the resources to mount an invasion of that scale, and Hitler never wanted world conquest, believing the US would fall on its own. Now, maybe if the invasion came 30 years after Germany conquered Europe and had obtained nuclear weapons, then that scenario becomes more believable.

That said, I never worry about it too much in what I read. Alternate histories are fun because they 1) provide interesting worlds to explore and 2) sometimes let us explore real world issues by framing history in a different light. Heck, a lot of alternate histories have magic in them, but that doesn't bother me if the writing is good.

One after the lady orders pizza knowing she doesn't have money to pay the delivery guy, After that I just call BS.

Turtledove starts his alternate history of the ACW by assuming Lee's orders at Antietam were not lost. That's not a big stretch.

Well, an even worse thing than something really improbable creating your alternate history is having an alternate history and NOT TELLING the reader how it came about! I encountered a published novel like that and it was pretty terrible. Just a whole new history with no explanation about how it came about-and no logical set of events (that I could see anyway) which would cause it.

Scott thats one of the Sci Fi tricks I love. The ship just goes faster than light it doesn't matter how. The Germans won WW1 it doesn't matter how. Kinda seems like lazy writing to me. (also I am a lazy writer so I would know)

"You can get one impossible thing before breakfast."

Kevin Andrew Murphy
multiplanar adventuring
about 15min in

celesticon.com/seminars.php

One thing about an alternate history story that often makes it seem artificial is having the reason explained. Imagine a 'real world' story where you explain some minor event that happened a couple of hundred years ago for no good reason. Now do the same with every story in that genre…

No, alternate history 'happened', same as the real thing, why the need to constantly explain it? Modern scifi stories don't need to go into the detail of rockets taking off or a 'traditional' encounter with meteors for space journeys, why should it be any different for alternate history stories?

Having Alien Lizards invade Earth right as soon as WWII breaks out pretty much uses up your improbability budget.

I generally don't care for the genre because the stories rely on one 'what if'. Once that occurs, the line of the narrative goes nuts. The worst ones fall back on a business as usual approach, just turned sideways. The worst offender is Turtledove but since he produces the lion's share of the genre, he gets a pass.

For some, that is. ;->=

Doug

I've done a few Battles with Alternate Historical results.

The first one was the Battle of the Nile where in the real Battle the French Fleet was at anchor and were mostly taken or destroyed by the English,but in my Battle things were slightly different.

The main thing was that in my Battle the French got word of the English coming and decided to meet them at sea which they did.

In the ensuing battle the English Fleet was for the most part captured or sunk with a few who escaped as for the French not one French ship was captured or sunk so it was a total victory for the French.

The other Battle I was part of was The Battle of the Yellow Sea where the Japanese(in the real battle)met and defeated the Russians.

But in our game the Russian's got the better of the Japanese in sinking or capturing most of their Fleet,and we even had a successful ramming of a Japanese Battleship by the Russian Flagship.

Almost every time we play an historical Battle once we start moving the figures,ships etc we are changing history.

For myself I would'nt want to fight the Battle of Waterloo for example as the French and lose I want to do my best to win as the French.

I have a friend of mine who wrote an Alternate history of the Waterloo Campaign with the French winning so he tried to get it published thru Green Hill Publishing and after someone there read it my friend was sent a letter saying well do the French have to win.

But my friend was able to get it published on his own and I have a copy of it.

But Gideon when do the spaceships show up??

cosmicbank they don't.

I also played in a Waterloo game where the French won and in addition I played in a Trafalgar game and the Franco-Spanish Fleet won.

So as I said you set up an historical Battle like Waterloo but as soon as you start moving the figures you're changing history and you can't get around that.

Their are times when the Historical winner ends up winning but not all the time.

I give the win to Cosmicbank.

That won't stop me from adding my own comment.

Robert wrote:

"None. The standard for fiction is higher than the standard for reality. You are allowed one improbable event to establish the alternate timeline, but after that … and the German Army will not invade Russia while neglecting to provide winter clothing. "

I would expand that point to say that no one would ever believe that the German Army would invade Russia while neglecting to provide winter clothing after having just witnessed the results of the Soviet Army's invasion of Finland without winter clothing.

History is written after everything is done. How do we know that our history is correct? Maybe we are living in the alternate world. I just wish those dirty apes would keep their paws to themselves.

Psteinert how do we know it isn't correct?

And you're right that History is written after everything is done but don't forget the winners(at times)write the History as they saw it and not as it was.

As others have said… just one to cause the divergence.

It can be a real humdinger… but then you have to be a little more 'logical' to seem plausible.

If your whole alternate is based on a continuing string of improbable coincidences, then the whole thing looks… very improbable…

Our entire world is a continuing string of improbable coincidences.

Our entire world is a continuing string of improbable coincidences.

As for the alternity causing event – if the characters in the novel know what it is, I'd drop the book right then.

It's one thing if the author explains in the afterword, forex, that he thought about what if Julius Caesar had a long and successful reign – what life be like in 2016?

It would be another if, for no reason, a character complains that hadn't been killed more than 2 millenia before.

If the plot itself reveals the change, I can accept it. If it doesn't reveal the exact moment of change, I can handle that, too, if the story is good.

History is written by the Victors. One decision gone different, one order that was not followed, a person killed that should have lived, a person that should have died, etc. Trying to figure out how things might have gone is a mind boggling game we all play in our own lives. To explore the alternate realities of our existence makes us one notch above most other critters. Hey if you could go back into Eisenhower's body, what you do differently or the same? What if you could have caught Hitler's ear in the 1920's, what would you have said( loose the mustache)? Well?

All storytellers get one free "I believe." That comes from them telling a story.

All further things you have to just accept in the story must be earned.

One of the reasons Game of Thrones throws a lot of people off kilter is that Martin does include a lot of these, drawing from historical examples.