Tevun-Krus #18 - Alternative History

The Bonio Asteroids Of Sector 7.881 - An Article by @AngusEcrivain

Now the thing with Alternate History is that technically, unless a given writer is a writer of none fiction, we're all authors of Alternate History.

I know what you're gonna' say so I'll get in there before you do.

"But how can I be an Alternate History writer if I'm writing a story that's set in the future?"

It's a fair point but remember, I did say 'technically.' The fact that your story is set in the future shouldn't make a difference. The world you create and within which you write your story that's set 10, 100, 1000 years into the future has its own history... That's a history that you've created. That history won't come to pass. OK so you might get lucky. The evolution of cats and dogs into hominids might happen, just as your future history predicts. Homo Catus and Homo Canis could very well engage in a brutal and bloody war that spans the length and breadth of Time and Space, fighting over everything from spilt milk to the mining rights of the Bonio Asteroids of Sector 7.881.

That might happen. I'll be honest with you I have no idea. Neither do you, neither does anyone else. I don't care what science says and as sure as eggs is eggs I don't care what those folk who reckon the world's only a few thousand years old say. The fact is that it could happen. It probably won't, but it could.

But we're going to assume, for the sake of argument, that Homo Catus and Homo Canis will have never existed come the end of time. The fact that your story depicts the aforementioned brutal and bloody war will, in time, define it as Alternate History.

Thing is you don't even ave to go to such extremes. I mean, pick a historical figure. Take your time it's all right, we've got all day...

So you've got your historical figure... Now all you have to do is place them in a given situation, a real one that actually happened, and change... something. It doesn't have to be anything big. Perhaps you chose a General on the battlefield and maybe, I don't know, the thing you decided to change was that he gave one of his Private's a long, lingering glance when he thought there was no one else looking. Because of that long, lingering glance, the Private and the General end up bumping uglies behind the latrine later that evening.

Boom! You've created an Alternate History. That never happened and because it did, maybe those two men were distracted on the battlefield the next day, their heads filled with thoughts of each others nooks and crannies and because of that, their diligence was not quite what it ought to have been and people who shouldn't have died, did.

Maybe the result was nothing quite as death-filled as that. Maybe when the Private returned home to the missus after several long months of fighting interspersed with multiple rendezvous' behind the latrine with the General, maybe he realised the missus wasn't what he wanted at all. Maybe it was at that point he finally knew he wanted a mister instead and as a result of that, the Private and his missus never had their three children; two boys and a girl, and none of them ever had any children, nor did their grandchildren or great-grandchildren because none of them ever existed, all because of that first romp in the mud behind the lavvy.

You see the thing with Alternate History - when you're specifically writing Alternate History - is that you have to think generations ahead. You have to think of the consequences of the actions of your characters, direct and indirect alike.