The Greatest History Never Altered
Jan. 21st, 2013 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliA discussion of what pieces of history are used and what aren't. And what weirder ones are useful.
One panelist's first idea is what if Eisenhower didn't get his Interstate System through Congress. It was a really messy battle. What would the effect being on our psychology if it was normal to have to putt along at 30 mph through the country? Another panelist pointed out that Route 66 was already acquiring a positive mythology by that point, and Route 1. Higher speeds would have come, just gradually. Perhaps not fully even to this day.
What if Princess Charlotte had not died in childbirth, and the child had lived, too? From the audience, I pointed out that this one is hard because it turns on the question of what sort of person the survivor would have turned out to be. What if Prince Arthur had lived to be king? Or long enough to get Catherine pregnant? What would he or his son have been like? (Long enough that Henry VIII had married someone else when Catherine was widowed would not raise that question.) Others pointed out that -- would it have made a difference? One cited Lord Darcy, which I think is weak. Why would Richard the Lion-Hearted's settling down and becoming a good king make magic be codified rather than science? It's a hand-wave, nothing else.
The problems of medical treatments and getting them to work better.
What if the Assyrians had gone on to thoroughly trample the Jews into non-existence when they were first there? Harry Turtledove's stories in which Mohamed became a Christian, a monk, and a great inspiration. (A panelist took the occasion to point out that that sort of choice could raise offense. Surprisingly enough, one audience member wanted to know why.) One panelist argued that Constantine made a difference, you could make Christianity a little sect that way. I pointed out that, on the contrary, Constantine's successor was an Arian, and his successor a full-blown pagan. They were not calling the shots. But in the very program description, there was one: Poul Anderson did one in the Punic Wars. Scipio Africanus and his father died early, Carthage won, Rome wasn't around to provide countering influence in the times of the Maccabees, Judaism ended, Christianity never started, and so neither did science. I pointed out that Anderson's characters were specifically trained to unravel things like that.
One panelist took off on that, on the whole notion of how many assumptions are necessarily built into any alternate history and its string of causes and effects.
One audience member wondered what we would guess had been meddled with in our own history, if we had evidence of a Time Patrol of some kind. Very odd, unusual things, they concluded. Like the famous lost order of Lee's that fell into McClellan's hands. Even McClellan, who could usually pull defeat from the very jaws of victory, only managed a bloody and bungled victory at Antietam, rather than a full defeat.
Vinland might have succeeded if the Vikings had managed to change their diets and not tried to raise cows in lands unsuited for them. One panelist discussed another author, who had the notion of feudal castles in Connecticut and tried to work back from there. Viking success was one way. The Aryan migration going the other way was another, a la Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. (More discussion of that book, of course.)
Much discussion of the Mongols or the Japanese in America. If the Mongol invasions of Japan had worked -- and only weather had foiled them -- imagine Japanese going up by the currents on the shorelines, and ending up in America. Anderson did one about the Monguls themselves finding it -- and his characters discovered that they were not preserving a pure untainted past, but the one that would lead to the Time Patrol. The Monguls would have succeeded without their meddling.
Concluding observations that the genre was no longer really SF or fantasy -- it was a genre of its own, having cast off its original connections.
One panelist's first idea is what if Eisenhower didn't get his Interstate System through Congress. It was a really messy battle. What would the effect being on our psychology if it was normal to have to putt along at 30 mph through the country? Another panelist pointed out that Route 66 was already acquiring a positive mythology by that point, and Route 1. Higher speeds would have come, just gradually. Perhaps not fully even to this day.
What if Princess Charlotte had not died in childbirth, and the child had lived, too? From the audience, I pointed out that this one is hard because it turns on the question of what sort of person the survivor would have turned out to be. What if Prince Arthur had lived to be king? Or long enough to get Catherine pregnant? What would he or his son have been like? (Long enough that Henry VIII had married someone else when Catherine was widowed would not raise that question.) Others pointed out that -- would it have made a difference? One cited Lord Darcy, which I think is weak. Why would Richard the Lion-Hearted's settling down and becoming a good king make magic be codified rather than science? It's a hand-wave, nothing else.
The problems of medical treatments and getting them to work better.
What if the Assyrians had gone on to thoroughly trample the Jews into non-existence when they were first there? Harry Turtledove's stories in which Mohamed became a Christian, a monk, and a great inspiration. (A panelist took the occasion to point out that that sort of choice could raise offense. Surprisingly enough, one audience member wanted to know why.) One panelist argued that Constantine made a difference, you could make Christianity a little sect that way. I pointed out that, on the contrary, Constantine's successor was an Arian, and his successor a full-blown pagan. They were not calling the shots. But in the very program description, there was one: Poul Anderson did one in the Punic Wars. Scipio Africanus and his father died early, Carthage won, Rome wasn't around to provide countering influence in the times of the Maccabees, Judaism ended, Christianity never started, and so neither did science. I pointed out that Anderson's characters were specifically trained to unravel things like that.
One panelist took off on that, on the whole notion of how many assumptions are necessarily built into any alternate history and its string of causes and effects.
One audience member wondered what we would guess had been meddled with in our own history, if we had evidence of a Time Patrol of some kind. Very odd, unusual things, they concluded. Like the famous lost order of Lee's that fell into McClellan's hands. Even McClellan, who could usually pull defeat from the very jaws of victory, only managed a bloody and bungled victory at Antietam, rather than a full defeat.
Vinland might have succeeded if the Vikings had managed to change their diets and not tried to raise cows in lands unsuited for them. One panelist discussed another author, who had the notion of feudal castles in Connecticut and tried to work back from there. Viking success was one way. The Aryan migration going the other way was another, a la Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. (More discussion of that book, of course.)
Much discussion of the Mongols or the Japanese in America. If the Mongol invasions of Japan had worked -- and only weather had foiled them -- imagine Japanese going up by the currents on the shorelines, and ending up in America. Anderson did one about the Monguls themselves finding it -- and his characters discovered that they were not preserving a pure untainted past, but the one that would lead to the Time Patrol. The Monguls would have succeeded without their meddling.
Concluding observations that the genre was no longer really SF or fantasy -- it was a genre of its own, having cast off its original connections.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 11:58 pm (UTC)Unless you came to one of my panels. Probably could have caught me then.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 09:45 am (UTC)Actually, we'd have been quite accustomed to booming along at speeds of 60 - 90 mph by rail!
You leave the Pennsylvania Station
At a quarter of four
Read a magazine
And then you're in Baltimore…
This is something about which I happen to know a great deal, having researched it for the project(s) I'm working on.
[You want to see the USA in your Chevrolet? No problem!
“Now, the one drawback, of course, is that if the kids need a restroom, Dad can always pull off the highway. That's not the case here. But that's a trivial point; ferries have restrooms and snack bars. If I was going to travel the four hundred-odd miles to Cincinnati, which I have done, I'd sure rather do it that way than by steering balloon tires at high velocity down an interstate highway for four, five hours…”]
Did you know that the sloping concrete facings of highway overpasses were going to be the doors of public fallout shelters? Had this been done, a major percentage of the US population at the time could have sheltered in case of a strategic nuclear attack! True, it would have doubled the price of the project, but it was being sold as a road system primarily for military use anyway…
- By the bye, the Constitution of the Confederate States specifically forbade any such projects - they wouldn't have had freeways, whethr the USA did or not.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 01:26 am (UTC)On the world of Aerth (Gary Gygax, Dangerous Journeys: Mythus) the Aegyptians conquered the lowland and the highland Shamash, so the two populations did not separate into the Canaanites and the Israelites. In addition, the Babylonians conquered the Assyrians instead of the other way around, then went on to defeat the Medes and the Persians. There is more to the story, but that should give you some idea of how the world turned out.
And BTW, the Atlanteans (A-Tlan-Tlan of Aerth) discovered South America (Amazonia) in the 2nd millennium BC (3rd millennium Before Atlantl's Fall) and North America (Vargaard) soon after. Though they did spend most of the time dominating and/or fighting the Aegyptians and Greeks. Which means that by the time our 1492 (their 492) came around the two populations had been in contact for thousands of years.
One last thing, they are now trying out railroads, and adopting steam engines to pump out their deeper mines.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 02:20 am (UTC)Some people would find the possibilities hard to swallow.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 03:25 am (UTC)Though one panelist spoke of a sprawling family epic to follow the progress.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 03:00 pm (UTC)And that's a good point, because it brings in the conflict of speculation versus story. Harry Turtledove's “Timeline-191” or “Southern Victory” series is interesting in that regard, because he reins it in for that reason (or because he ran out of ideas, which I don't believe).
Briefly, he posits a surviving CSA, and the effects this would have on North American history. It gets fascinating - as the CSA were aided by the enemy British (the War of 1812 was within living memory), the USA vows to find friends of its own, and up pops Imperial Germany, how d' ye do… then along comes 1914, oops.
…AND the CSA suffers a humiliating defeat (but remains an extant nation) AND a disgruntled CS Army non-com vows to cleanse the ethnic contaminant that he believes contributed to the loss, AND he joins a fringe political group led by
Anton DrexlerAnthony Dresser AND his 'Freedom Party' symbol is an X shape AND -And every bit of originality drained from the series, until finally even Operation Blackbeard is launched on the very same date as Operation Barbarossa [Redbeard]. It all becomes a rehash of WWII drawn on the North American continent. Still well written, mind you, but you know where you are and where you're going.
Because otherwise, it would all become just a random mishmash of weird. NO ONE in AD 1900 could imagine life in AD 2000, try as they may, nor could 1950 - or 1975, for that matter. If your point of divergence is a hundred years ago, there's no telling what might have occurred - unless you deliberately shape it to something recognizable, or simply stop it, as in S M Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers, which still uses Victorian technology in the 21st century because that's all the farther they've recovered from the Big Oops, &c., &c.
Serious historians do serious speculation. Writers write stories.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-25 11:07 pm (UTC)Also, aiming your alternate history at something or other is one way of avoiding option paralysis: it's not very long past the point of divergence at all that you can't keep asking "what would have happened?" and have to downgrade to "what might have happened?"
no subject
Date: 2013-01-25 11:41 pm (UTC)