While I’m notorious in AH circles as someone who insists that a AH story be (1) A GOOD STORY and (2) have some historical basis, not to mention (3) be one simple Point Of Divergence, not a whole mess of them (I can deal with some cascade effects, but not simultaneous stuff) – I give a lot of latitude to someone who gets those points clearly covered.
Some famous AH works don’t fit those rules, really. The most common is the time-travellers-come-back-and-yoink-with-t
Another failing in AH stuff is a sheer lack of imagination! The number of things I have seen cross my desk as a Sidewise judge or in general that revolve around the following topics – to the point of making one want to slam the next one up across the room and into the recycling bin – drive me nuts.
- The US Civil War (followed by a highly unified, fascist and militarist Confederacy that Menaces All)
- The whole WW2 period (Nazis rule the world, etc.)
- JFK wasn’t killed at Dallas (very little of which is very realistic and most involves JFK as a perfect and peaceful paladin.)
- an endless Roman empire, with odd tech thrown in but otherwise pretty unchanged
- Killer Aztecs on the march, destroying all before them and ruling the world with blood sacrifices and machine guns.
- and more recently, let’s throw in dragon, elves, magic and whatnot and call that alternate history without significantly changing history as it happened.
Part of the problem with these is a failure of imagination; people hack endlessly at these areas and don’t do anything all that interesting or new with them. Or like Harry Turtledove, they hack at them through 15 books and 10,000 point-of-view characters until you scream and threaten to burn the books before being forced to read any more of the turgid things.
Part of what bothers me in these re-repeats is that most fail to understand the backgrounds of the situations very well!
The CSA came about because of the whole ’state’s rights’ thing, and was not a very successful device because the national effort was very dependent on the support of the individual states – or lack thereof. Turning a very loose association of states into a unitary fascist setup is a very tough act to pull off. It wasn’t going to happen. Much more likely to me would have been something like the banana republics of Central America – a new set of similar sleepy despotisms.
The Axis powers went into the war as badasses that
- considered themselves have-not nations that deserved the goodies others had and
- made the most of their initial progress by
- being organized badasses who were looking for a quick stomp.
They were not in any way ready for a long war and expected Those Wimps to keel over before their awesomeness. (And especially in the case of the Germans, they were horrendously wasteful and corrupt and mismanaged when it came down to resource management and real governance.) In short, they wouldn’t have been able to hold up once the quick stomp plan ran into a serious roadblock, and certainly not over the long run.
JFK was no paladin, and there were lots of things that otherwise would have blown up and sank a Kennedy administration that we just didn’t really get into at the time. Google simultaneously on “Don Reynolds” and “LBJ” for starters.
The Romans staying the same over all that time is laughable; see also Byzantium.
The Aztecs were going to crash sooner or later, either when the smallpox hit and devastated Mexico, or when enough of their enemies decided to off them. Remember always that their power position wasn’t that strong, and that the majority of the forces that creamed the Aztecs were NOT Spanish but pissed-off locals that had had enough of the Aztecs and saw this as their oppotunity to take them down.
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jrittenhouse- Jim Rittenhouse
- Jim Rittenhouse's Website (how boring, no?)
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Hmm. An AH in which *I* was not born, leading to a complete dystopia and requiring time travel to fix it!
The seeds of Roman imperial collapse were many and eliminating one or two elements would probably not have changed much of the eventual outcome, certainly not stabilizing it for over a thousand more years. Not to mention that the Roman Empire was rapidly changing throughout its own history; to pick a point in time and assume it would freeze like that really is ludicrous. As to the CSA, there's even more complexity to it than that, even, given the various Confederate states' rights platforms compared to each other, the issues over the slavery status of new states and expansionism, and the huge devastation with which the South would have come out of even a victorious war. Indeed, much of the "victorious" South could well have wound up as vassal states to various European powers.
The tale is set at the time of the Spanish incursion, and begins with a relatively simple change (getting Atahualpa out of town before he's kidnapped) and follows subsequent events for two or three years. Sue's writing style is unique, and not to my usual taste, but what I enjoyed about the story compensated for it. From what I can tell, it doesn't fall into any of the habits you find annoying.
The published first book had a good story arc in its own right and does come to a reasonable resting point, even through it leaves a lot of the story untold. Still, the fact that it wasn't received strongly enough to get the other two books published indicates to me that not everyone enjoyed being immersed in that world as much as I did.
*crickets*
So one the one hand, I can see why #2 never came around - the story didn't explain that it was just going to leave you on the downtown bus stop at 2:30 am (with the next bus running at 7 am).
The only other thing that threw me was that she directly translated all the Quetchua into English in regard to names, and Royal Flower Seed versus Gitcheegumi made it harder for me to follow things.
On the other hand, for sheer inventiveness, I gave her all sorts of Kudos. You did notice that it was on the Sidewise short list for 2000?
1) The Guns of the South violates only rule 2 of the three (it is certainly a far better story than most recent AH), and does so in order to make a simple historical point.
2) The Confederates were not really in favor of states rights. They were in favor of slavery, and used "states rights" as a convenient rhetorical cover. I direct you to the Fugitive Slave Law, as pretty a piece of proto-fascist federal authoritarianism as ever made, and which the future Confederates enthusiastically supported and indeed foisted on the North. As a further demonstration of the depth of their principles, I direct you to the desperate last-ditch decision to arm slaves in defense of the CSA, which as some pointed out went against everything they stood for, but was defended on the grounds that it didn't matter what they stood for if they couldn't win. I think these two examples leave plenty of room for AH with an independent South going fascist to keep its slaves, or freeing them, or anything in between.
3) Don Reynolds appears to have been part of the whole Bobby Baker mess. I don't see how that could have caused more trouble in an AH in which LBJ remained VP than it did in this one where he became President.
I disagree on the point on the Confederates. Look at the problems that Davis had in getting support for the central war effort and government from the various governors (especially Georgia) because they just didn't care to cooperate. (The fact that Davis was a my-way-or-the-highway ass didn't help.)
The Fugitive Slave Law is a nice point, but such a law was written into the Constitution at the beginning (see Article Four, Section Two, Clause 3) and was reaffirmed specifically in both the 1793 FSL and the far-more-well-known 1850 FSL. (Same section in the Constitution sets up intrastate extradition rules.) The 1850 law was set up because of various court decisions and roadblocks that had made chasing after slaves a lot harder in free states, and was part of the Compromise of 1850 (as such).
The slave states saw this as a necessity to stop the flight of their very expensive property that was being 'stolen' across the border, so to speak. This went across the spectrum as unacceptable.
As to putting black soldiers in the line, this was finally agreed to by the Confederate Congress about a month before the end. By that time, the desertion levels in the CS Army were going through the roof; the end of the war was more a general collapse than much of a battle.
And yeah, it was a part of the Compromise of 1850. It was the part that the Southerners demanded in return for giving up their god-given right to have an equal number of slave states and to restrict the expansion of slavery into the territories - a restriction they tolerated for no more than four years.
And sure, the arming of slaves was a last-minute desperation throw. It was what demonstrated that, for such a throw, they'd be willing to discard everything that made them fight in the first place.
You're not telling me anything I didn't already know. You're telling me things I already took into consideration before expressing my previously stated evaluations.
OK. I certainly agree with you as to the level and nastiness of the 1850 FSL; that was what made it so widely hated in the north.
I remember that the terms of the black enlistment law essentially made it masters-option; the master has to sign ove rthe slave to the government and realize that after the war, the slave would be free. (I forget about compensation term...) By the end of the war, I think there were only a few dozen slaves who had been enrolled as the country lay in extremis.
I'm not trying to say that the war was really fought over states' rights. The war was fought over slavery, and the states-rights things were a defense of slavery at all costs. But the pre-war USA 'union' was a looser affair in practice that it is now (or since the Civil War), and many of the southern states found even that too tight for their liking (c.f. the nullification fight under Jackson).
In 1860, the majority of South Carolinians were black and slaves. To keep a large slave population in check, you pretty much are obliged to keep a very strict police state in place - against the slaves. I don't have the information available to me here in the hospital, but my recollection is that voting rights were pretty restricted in regard to property and so on, tilting the political power direction towards wealthy landowners and the like. Not fascism per se, but not many had a real political voice in things.
Edited at 2009-07-10 02:11 pm (UTC)
True enough that the Confederate soldiers fought for their states, but they fought together with men from other states. Lee of Virginia had no objection to working with Longstreet of Alabama.
Since your point is that the Southern states were a little too willfully independent-minded for their own (collective) good, I agree - and that lack of central control is one of the many reasons they lost the war. I do think, however, that it's perfectly reasonable for AH writers to postulate a more authoritarian South - and, indeed, if they're writing a history in which the South wins, they've pretty much got to.
I think that first version fulfills a dark fantasy for some, but is way less realistic to what was likely.
The local pooh-bahs got their way, everyone knew their place, and so on up the food chain. The notion of abolition would throw a serious brick into the antebellum South on social and economic terms, not to mention that the big planters would never be able to keep their systems going if they were paying a free wage. Not to mention what the heck to they do with all of those free blacks ratting around who didn't have a lot of loving thoughts and attitudes to ole Massah.
Anything that struck at The System had to be fought back at at all costs and with all methods, just as a slave revolt would never be tolerated and could never be allowed - it would mean a total devastation of their lives and livelihood. The fact that they really weren't so damn free in their day to day lives and tied to a burdensome, antiquated system was beyond their understanding. It was The System, and they were as obligated to it as a Qing Dynasty Chinese with a pigtail down his back, unable to think of the notion of self-liberation or a lifestyle much different than the one they had been raised in.
Beyond that point - beyond that intrastate obsession of the idea of Leaving Us Be - which worked into the whole states rights thing - the trick was that what was good for Georgia was not necessarily good for Virginia or Texas.
Lee went with the CSA because his first loyalty was to his home state. Others who didn't care much about slavery went with the CSA because their home state had went with the CSA, and they were loyal to their home state.
What I guess I'm trying to say is that I have no illusions about the states that joined the Confederacy; esepcially when you look at the political and social systems and nastinesses during the war (look at the Confederate Home Guard in particular) it's pretty obvious that there was an had been a really tightly controlled system that kept a lot of people in their 'places', and was pretty ruthless in doing so, and did not brook external influences that might change this.
However, what I'm trying to express is that interstate political connections in the Confederacy were limited as hell. 'Outside' South Carolina or Georgia didn't just mean the USA or Bostron, but that damn Davis in Richmond, or those jokers in Texas or North Carolina. Each little state satrapy was very set on its own self-preservation, and as various governors fought off Davis during the war (Texas, Georgia and North Carolina in particular come to mind, not to mention the Vice President himself, who retired to his Georgia home in a snit and stayed there) when he asked for troops, supplies and other stuff, it becomes clear to me that failing a united front to fight off the USA (which they did only clumsily and shakily at best) on the grounds of losing slavery, that after the war, the likelihood is huge that the alliance of states into a true nation was unlikely to hold up very well. Much more likely would be that key states would break off over some crisis or other and tell the rest of the CSA to go to hell.
Each would be their own little tinpot despotism, quite happy to rusticate in their own sauce in perpetuity, controlling the locals with an iron hand and quite unwilling to let some damn snake from Over There tell them what to do.
I'm currently 80+k words into a fantasy novel. While not, strictly speaking, an alternate history, as part of the background I came up with a turning point which makes this world different from ours. In real history, Charlemagne's empire was split between two of his grandsons. In my world, one of them died of a common childhood illness.
The empire stays together for another generation, and a tradition is formed of keeping it that way. The reforms begun by Charlemagne continued, spreading wider and deeper. At some point, someone did something which brought magic back into the world. (Yeah, I did say it's a fantasy novel.)
(Really, do go on, minus the magic. )
One of the principles I go by in this world is that some things have deep roots. Despite the change, many things develop identically (at least for a while) or in a very similar manner.
I've had a lot of fun with this. There's a Pope in Rome, who handles the purely spiritual aspects of the Church, and a Hierophant in Avignon, who is the intermediary between the Pope and the mundane world.
Here is the divergence:
AD 840 Louis the Pious dies. Louis the German (aka Louis II aka Louis the Bavarian), son of Louis, inherits the empire of his father and grandfather. Challenged by the alliance of Lothair and Pepin II of Aquitaine in the Bruderkrieg, through a combination of military action and negotiation he acquires most of his grandfather's empire. The Treaty of Verdun, concluded in August of 843, formalizes the agreement. Louis subsequently manages to further expand his holdings, partly due to mistakes made by Charles the Bald which alienate many of the latter's citizens. Slowly, through a variety of techniques including simply outliving rivals, he extends the land under his control in all directions. By the time of his death in AD 881 his empire is slightly but significantly larger than that of his grandfather.
Though not as talented or progressive as Charles the Great, the greater resources of a united Empire allowed him to maintain its status. Also, the demands of managing such a large political entity encouraged Louis II to improve on and extend many of the educational and managerial policies pioneered by his grandfather, creating a bureaucracy to manage the Empire. Late in his reign, at the recommendation of some advisors, he made official the practice of keeping the Empire together, with the eldest son ruling and any other offspring being given positions of lesser but still significant power.
The idea of a Hierophant is an odd one, but...
Do let me know more!
I have posted several pieces of the background in my own LJ. Including the Stenoses, which codify the relationship of church, state, (law) court and citizen.
The novel is set in modern time. Naturally, the further you go forward from the divergence point the greater the differences. Magic was slow to take off (ruling powers being jealous) but did eventually start making major differences itself.
Technological development was slower here (for a complex set of reasons, including magical healing reducing the effects of the Black Death). Most of Europe is at a stage more like the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, than the Twenty-First. The Iron War, fought about forty years ago, got its name from the extensive use by one party of steam-powered armored wagons.
Most tech advances came about because we Really Needed something, and we HAD to put a lot of time and effort into making the breakthroughs. Would there be MP3 players without the moon program leading to computers, etc.? Lots of households a hundred years ago used hired help for manual labor that is no longer needed because we developed cheaper appliances to take up the tasks. When you throw magic in, unless it's very rare and/or very weak, people are going to use it for things that machines can't do, or to make themselves powerful or rich, or whatever. Society would rapidly be changed to a point where it wasn't recognizable.
Yes. Remember that many alchemists were sponsored by wealthy, powerful people who wished to maintain or increase their wealth and power. In this world, even though magic was prohibited most places for most of a thousand years, it was supported in secret by the rich and powerful. Nearly every society in this world is still ruled by some sort of hereditary elite group. Many of those elite groups hold a near-monopoly on magic within their culture.
I actually tailored the rules to keep magic from being overwhelming. Much training and practice are needed for anything beyond parlor tricks, and even powerful magic is only about as effective at most things as mundane tools. (Power level limit. This means that you don't make a magical fire, you use magic to create a spark which ignites a mundane fire.) Magic doesn't normally work well over a distance. (Range limit.) Ontological inertia means that making permanent changes is very difficult. (Time limit. This means that actual magical healing is very difficult.)
I'm an engineer with a long interest in the history of technology. I tend to approach things like the application of magic from that viewpoint.
Uurm. Yeah. Jim, weirdly enough my current WIP is about a Roman empire that has survived almost unchanged since roughly 200 AD. I think I figured out how to make that plausible. I'm workshopping it in POD, so I would be interested in seeing how plausible you think it is, Jim.
Even more weirdly, I'm toying with the idea of an AH World War II with what appears to be magic, but may not actually be. If I actually write it, it will have a single POD, with a system of 'magic' that is consistent and actually rather rational.
On the aftermath of a confederate victory in the Civil War: Yeah, I could see the south falling apart into a series of petty dictatorships, though I think that Virginia would have industrialized and become more like the northern states over time. Texas would have probably split off from the south eventually, either defacto or for real. The only thing that might prevent that outcome would be an ongoing 'cold war' type situation with a threat from the north, or possibly a longer civil war, with continued forced industrialization in the south. It's hard to imagine the civil war going on much longer than it did though. I suppose that if the Confederates had won more in the west, that might have kept the Confederates going, but if the Union hadn't made some progress by 1864, I'm not sure if Lincoln would have been reelected.
Another option: No Civil War, but the deep south states peacefully secede. There was considerable support for 'letting the wayward sisters go'. Not sure if there was enough support to make it actually happen. Virginia might not have seceded under those circumstances. The resulting Confederacy would be prosperous for a while, but in a one-crop, very vulnerable way. Eventually cotton plantations would have exhausted the soil and they would have become banana republics.
In any case, good to see you getting back into AH, Jim.
Magic in AH: Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! *runs screaming* Not you too?!
Unchanging Rome: I can expound in a later one of these as to exactly why this won't fly, but in short; it's very very very hard to keep things that unchanging for that long, without stupid internal management tricks / external pressures / climate change / any number of outside influences changing things. Think Perry in Japan and the Opium War and its aftermath, where the barbarians kept sailing in.
Circa 200 AD, Rome stopped having anything resembling a solid governance, and other pressures busted it to pieces.
Civil War: I don't see a peaceful secession, unless things had crested earlier under Buchanan. The trick was to get enough people revved up and eating fire for long enough, and then have a anti-slave non-appeaser show up and win in 1860, producing the final shockwave to actually go for secession (more than a Socuth Carolinian up-yours, as per the nullification crisis under Jackson. See also Taylor's attitude towards secession.