I guess depends if you think someone is brilliant and will always make an impact (could think of Hannah Arendt or Robert Habeck like figure) or is more tossed into something due to circumstances
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Exactly: That's what makes alt history fun! The author really has to make the reader believe it. BOYS FROM BRAZIL was interesting because of the conceit that they could create another Hitler through a combo of nature and nurture. Would location and/or context matter?
aug 25, 2025, 10:00 pm • 1 0 • view
I guess it also depends on the point of divergence and on the area. A person that is 25 at the point of divergence might have already been formed enough to have similar conditions.
aug 26, 2025, 7:37 am • 0 0 • view
I keep thinking about timing. Like, if Charles Lindburgh was born a decade earlier or a decade later.... perhaps he becomes an flying ace and gains fame, or just an airboy shot down on his first run. And would he still go fascist?
aug 26, 2025, 10:44 am • 2 0 • view
And people of character (i.e., MLK) might be more likely to meet the moment. He was important in Montgomery before the speech and I assume he'd continue whenever he was born, just as Thurgood Marshall was a historic lawyer long before he became a judge.
aug 26, 2025, 10:47 am • 1 0 • view
But then I think about Woolf's "Shakespeare's Sister" and her being unknown because she's a woman. Born today, that would be less likely. Ah, the joy of alt history. : )
aug 26, 2025, 10:48 am • 1 0 • view
I guess it depends. I would think if you place a historical corrector that falls through time into present day if it’s character, there might be a different kind of alternative history then Just looking at how with the same person have reacted under different circumstances
aug 26, 2025, 10:53 am • 1 0 • view