"In another life, I sell used cars..."

After a holiday week in the north (of Spain, not Westeros!), I am ready to retake my "job" of providing you with new entertainment and info on alternative history.

In alternative histories, particularly when it is about those that take place in alternate modern times (the 19^th and 20^th centuries), commonly the writer will make small jokes that make reference to events or people of our reality, sometimes including details of the real, referenced people, showing how they can change when showed on a different context.

This is an idea that can be very funny if well done, particularly when it is about famous people. On the Internet, this is a phenomenon known as "Richard Nixon, The Used Car Salesman", a reference to the Harry Turtledove novel The Two Georges, where Richard Nixon is the owner of a chain of used steamcar stores (an idea based in the fact that, in our reality, Nixon's parents owned a gas station), whose murder is the starting point of the novel.

Another typical objective of this treatment is Adolf Hitler, with many stories turning him into an artist of one kind or another (some of which I already mentioned when I spoke about him a couple of months ago), although there are other possibilities, such as his remaining in the army for whatever reason, so he cannot become the Führer later. Sometimes, they even manage to find ways for the man to suffer, even if he is not the same Hitler as ours and that, indeed, he would not have committed the same sins.

Works in which this phenomenon takes place? There are boatloads of them, the only problem is to find them carefully, to ensure we get good ones...

• The graphic novel Watchmen. Apart from still having Richard Nixon as President of the United States in the year 1985 (as the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution was repealed), there is "RR", who some characters and newspapers mention as possibly planning to become a candidate to the presidency. But, surprisingly, it is not Ronald Reagan, but... Robert Redford. There are also some references to the Comedian preventing the investigation into the Watergate scandal to go forward by murdering the two Washington Post journalist that were doing so, Woodward and Bernstein.
• The book (and movie) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, has Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter (he hates vampires because they killed his mother when he was a child) who is fighting to prevent a group of them to turn humanity into their cattle to feed on.
• The film Shanghai Knights. Two of the characters that the main ones (played by Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson) meet are a police detective called Artie Doyle (who is named knight at the end of the film and turns out to be Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes) and a young pickpocked called Charlie (Charlie Chaplin, who takes advantage of the main characters' travel back to the USA to go there as a stowaway).
• The above mentioned The Two Georges, apart from Nixon, has Martin Luther King Jr as Governor-General of the North American Union (the combination of the United States and Canada, since the USA never became independent) and John Fitzgerald Kennedy as the editor of a pro-independence newspaper. There is also mention of Andrew Jackson (to us, seventh President of the United States) as the Governor-General when slavery was declared illegal.
• Two short stories by Kim Newman, The Germans Won and Slow News Day, both of which have John Major as the main character. In the former, Major, instead of Prime Minister, is a bus driver (which he applied to in reality, but failed as he could not do the mental arithmetic required for the job), while, in the latter, the author suggests that Major would have become Prime Minister (following Margaret Thatcher) even if the Nazis had won World War II.
• In the book series Lord Darcy, Enzo Ferrari is a firearm maker.
• In the Internet alternative history No Spanish Civil War In 1936, Francisco Franco is a hero of the Spanish Republic, Manuel Fraga is the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the 1960s, Ernesto Guevara (Che Guevara) writes books about political systems, and famed anarchist Buenaventura Durruti becomes President of the Spanish Republic during World War II, in which Spain is part of the Allies and becomes invaded.
• In one of Sliders' chapters, vampires exist, and Nixon is the worst vampire to ever exist. And, in another chapter J. Edgar Hoover is the tyrannical President of the United States.
• To the already mentioned, pro-democracy Otto Skorzeny, leader of the Special Forces of the Infinity Patrol, we can add the Vicepresident of the United States Malcolm Little (better known as Malcolm X) in a world where the Confederate States managed to secede, Jabir ibn Hayyan (the most famous alchemist in the Arab world) as the inventor of mustard gas in a world dominated by Rome, and Ibn-Sina inventing calculus in a world where the printing press was invented in Baghdad.
• Finally, we have the complex world of Ill Bethisad, where many people end up changing, or not. Frederic Chopin is still a great musician, but Ho Chi Minh (the leader, in our reality, of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War) is the Vietnamese Emperor; Adolf Hitler is a well-known author whose magnum opus is "The Iron Dream", where the villain is an empire quite similar to what was Nazi Germany; ; Stalin is an Orthodox priest and socialist leader; Nikola Tesla managed to invent a very cheap energy generator (so cheap, that the only actual costs are due to maintenance issues; Juan de la Cierva (Xierva here, as Aragon and Castile never unified) manages to commercialize his autogiros and make them as ubiquitous as helicopters are for us; y Eugene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, is a writer whose books inspire the "local" equivalent to the series.

There are so many ways to change people when you change the world. Even if it makes little to no sense that certain people still live even after the world changed so much. Well, at least it does add a sense of familiarity for the reader...

I hope that, next Friday, you will be ready for a new post in this blog, and that you will enjoy it. See you!

Running between shadows

It is the year 2070, when corporations dominate the world economy (and the ten most powerful are pretty much independent nations, with their own armies), dragons manipulate everything behind the scenes, humans live with elves, orks, trolls and goblins, the United States are divided and partly unified with Canada) and magic lives easily around the entire world, and only a few people, hidden from the corporations and possessors of great abilities, are able to do the dirty work others cannot, either bringing some light to the world or darkening it even more.

Welcome to the world of Shadowrun, world complex and difficult to work with, considering the many, many changes in history that have taken place in this role-playing game's background.

This game's historic divergence point is in the 1990s, when the power of corporations within the world started to grow so much that they developed their own private security forces, which were pretty much paramilitary groups. The great event that made everything go to hell was the New York Food Riots of 1999, when a great truckers' strike left the city without fresh foods for a month. In the middle of these riots, a truck from a corporation called Seretech Med-Research, which contained infectious residues, crossed the city, and it was assaulted by people that believed it had food. The fight ended in a bloodbath, and Seretech got charged with negligence, but they got away with it when they argued that their security forces' actions had prevented worse consequences (although it is believed that Seretech organized the attack themselves). Later, an attack against a Shiawase Corporation nuclear plant by a radical ecologist group led to the US Supreme Court to give extraterritoriality to the main corporations (which meant that all terrains owned by those corporations would be considered foreign land), but it turned out it had been a false flag operation carried out by Shiawase, something that the ecologists were unable to prove as they were attacked and all proof destroyed. Meanwhile, several Japanese corporations sparked the resumption of fighting in the Korean Peninsula, with victory going to South Korea. However, the Japanese influence ended up helping restablish the Japanese Empire, which would soon begin to establish great influence in the world (so much, that the Japanese coin ended up becoming the most accepted tender in the whole world) thanks to its solar energy production satellites, which were then sent to microwave receptors in the terrestrial surface.

The 2010-2019 period was one of the most convulse to ever be seen. The problems caused by the concession of resources in Indian reserves led to the interning of thousands of Native Americans in "re-education centers", pretty much concentration camps in all but name, but the natives would soon get revenge within the same decade, starting a guerrilla war against the American government. 2010 also saw the beginning of an epidemics called VITAS (standing for Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome) led to the death of a quarter of humanity, particularly in India, China, Africa and Mexico, which, in January 2011, saw the official dissolution of its own government.

2011 was also the year of the UGE (Unexplained Genetic Expression) when babies all over the world started to be born with deformities that turned them in elves and dwarves. On December 24^th, the Awakening happened, and while the great dragon (yes, dragon) Ryumyo appeared over Mount Fuji, weather and geographic pattern suddenly changed everywhere (many forests started to rapidly grow in Ireland, stone circles appeared in Great Britain and the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Denmark suffered toxic floods as the North Sea pushed into the Elbe). These problems were explained by great dragon Dunkelzahn on January 25^th 2012 during an interview that lasted twelve hours: magic had returned to the world.

In 2015, Mexico was refounded as Aztlan (with the support of the Corporation ORO, which would remake itself as Aztechnology), forcing also the return of the nation to the customs of the bloodiest days of the Aztec civilization. Finally, 2018 saw the Treaty of Denver, which put an end to the war against the Amerindian tribes, giving them the independence and property of a good part of the Midwest, breaking the United States in two.

The next years were not better: development of cybernetic limbs was quite good for those that had lost a leg or an arm, but it was soon discovered that could have bad effects for the patients' mental health; ten percent of the living adults suffered a metamorphosis that turned them into trolls and orks; another VITAS epidemic killed even more people; the Lone Star private security company was created, and ended up being hired to act as the police corps for many cities; the Crash of '29 Virus, which required months of fighting in cyberspace and caused the death of several of the fighting hackers (the Matrix-style connection was just beginning at the time), the unification of the United States and Canada and later secession of California (actually, they were kicked out from the Union after dithering too many on whether to become independent or not, and ended up being invaded by all the surrounding nations) and that of the Confederate States; the Euro-Wars; the formation of the Awakened nations of Amazonia (in Brazil), Tír na n'Óg (in Ireland) and Tír Tairngire (seceded from the previously mentioned Amerindian nation; the Acts of Wrath against the metahuman population (elves, dwarves, orks and trolls) and, finally, the appearance of the Universal Brotherhood, which is actually a front for a group of insect spirits that wanted to come to our world and possess all humans; the reaction to this last event ended up with the "life" of the city of Chicago in the year 2056.

Things also got really messy from the year 2036, when the UCAS (United Canadian and American States) passed an ammendment that forced all of its citizens to register and obtain a SIN, turning (System Identification Number), turning anyone that did not have one into second-class citizens. This would end up being a headache when, in 2057, Dunkelzahn decided to present himself as candidate to the Presidency of the UCAS, which required him to have a SIN assigned. Dunkelzahn ended up winning the elections, but he was not able to enjoy his victory for too long, as he was murdered on Inauguration Day by an unknown person.

2061 also brought great changes. Many places in the world suffered storms of variable strength, the vulcanic Ring of Fire exploded, particularly affecting California, the Philippines and Japan, which lost control over a good part of its empire, and a new dragon appeared in the place where Dunkelzahn had died. In 2064, the Matrix (name given to the Internet in this universe) crashed again, so it was replaced with a new, wireless version, and in 2068 General Angela Colloton was voted in as President of the UCAS.

Now, it is the year 2070. Shadowrun is a role-playing game, so the players have to create their own characters, who are the shadowrunners that give name to the game, people capable of remaining between the shadows and do the dirty work other entities (corporations, governments and even individual people) do not wish to have traced back to them. Their potential abilities are legion, among them magic and technomancy (a branch of magic based in the use of the Matrix), but also abilities that can go from robbery (or destruction) of information to kidnapping or murder, but there are missions that are about helping people, defend a place from criminals or even saving a kidnapping victim from other shadowrunners. A problem they have is that they normally do not have their own SIN, which lets them remain hidden among the population but does not allow them to have access to basic services, such as a house or a hospital, but they can always get themselves a fake SIN to access to all of that without a problem.

The ten most important corporations of the world, the AAA (the only ones that have extraterritoriality) are these:

• Ares Macrotechnology (Detroit, UCAS): specialized in security corps and technology related to the military, space, entertainment and vehicles.
• Aztechnology (Tenochtitlán, Aztlan): specialized in consumer and magical goods, owner of the Nicaragua Canal. Good reputation, but every shadowrunner knows they are neck-deep into the blood sacrifices practiced in Aztlan.
• Evo Corporation (Vladivostok, Russia): bioengineering and nanotechnology, as well as products for metahumanity. They have a base in Mars.
• Horizon (Los Angeles, Pueblo Corporate Council): the newest of the AAA, they are specialized in public relations, marketing and social networking.
• Mitsuhama Computer Technologies (Kyoto, Japan): a computer company, also related with robotics, heavy industry and magical goods. Related with the Japanese Yakuza.
• NeoNET (Massachussetts, UCAS): the creators of the Wireless Matrix following the Matrix Second Crash (which they were partially responsible of), they are also expanding into other fields.
• Renraku Computer Systems (Chiba, Japan): the world's main data repository, as well as owner of most telecommunication grids in Asia, although they have sufferd several setbacks in the last few years.
• Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries (Essen, Germany): related with heavy, chemical, financial and aerospatial industry, its owner is the great dragon Lofwyr.
• Shiawase Corporation (Osaka, Japan): the oldest of the AAA, and the one that set precedent for corporative extraterritoriality, it is a zaibatsu (traditional Japanese company) with its fingers in all dishes.
• Wuxing Incorporated (Hong Kong Free Enterprise Enclave): its rising to the rank of AAA is owed to Dunkelzahn, who left them a lot of money in his will. Although previously concentrated in finances, they are now working in magical-related servicies.

We are lucky that this future will never come to being, because, let's be serious, living in this world would be quite horrible, what with everything that is going on in this world, don't you think so?

See you!

Making borders grow as if they were balloons

Many times in alternative histories, it happens that, in order for the writer to get the story to be set in the place s/he wants, he has to "propel" a certain nation, culture, political theory or philosophy in such a way that it earns a great, perhaps even disproportionate, advantage over their contemporaneous partners. If well written, it can be interesting or shown just in order to entertain the reader, but in general it is the signal of a writer that has decided to take the easy way out of the mess he has got himself into. This is what, in the slang of alternative history writers and readers, is known as a "Wank". Yes, I know it is not a word for casual conversation, but that is the way it is.

In our reality, there have been many nations for which there were periods of time in which they, in apparently implausible ways, they have become world powers, such as the United States, the British Empire, the Mongols or Alexander the Great's Greek Empire, but all of them are imperfect examples of what a "wank" is supposed to be, as all of them have suffered setbacks at many situations (save for the United States, which has gone through the Vietnam War and the War on Terror, none of them have survived).

Treating an alternative history as a "wank" is very popular when it comes to famous empires or nations, but, for some reason, those that are considered the "bad guys" tend to be more popular, such as the case of Nazi Germany, of which there are too many examples around (of course, considering everything they did, they would need some of that to actually win the war).

Much like in everything else, there is disagreement over what makes an alternative history a "wank". Some say that, for that to happen, the history must be fundamentally impossible or require the intervention of the ASB to take place, while others state that the mere fact of making the nation their favourite, making geniuses out of their leaders and idiots out of their enemies (just an example) is more than enough to hang that sign on them. Whichever the way picked, the one thing in common is that the author is clearly favoring one nation/group/whatever over others.

Another problem with this type of histories is that they do not explain how multiple national identities end up fusing in a multinational power dominated by one culture without a problem. Sometimes, this even happens in the entire world, in such a way that it becomes divided between a small number of super-empires that, somehow, last for many more years than they should be able to.

And you are probably going to wonder about which stories feature which examples of "wanked" nations. Well, that is not going to be the way I will show this: instead, I will mention which nations are the ones that tend to undergo the process, and in which books they appear.

• United States of America: let's begin with the easiest one. Considering how huge they are in real life, it might feel difficult making them even greater, but it is possible. One of my favourite examples is The United States of Ameriwank, where a strange visitor from the future (called The Stranger) meets with George Washington some time before the American Revolution begins and tells him that he must unite the world under the flag of the United States in order to save the world from a war that will take place in the future, giving him several objects that will aid in the cause. In the Firefly series background, it is stated that the Alliance - the main antagonist of the story - is that the United States, along with China, took over Earth (called Earth-that-was) some time before the long travel that took humanity to the solar system it currently lives in, something similar to what happens in the CoDominium book series, although in this case it is the Soviet Union that shares the power. There is also the graphic novel Watchmen, where the United States wins the Vietnam War thanks to Doctor Manhattan and there is actually talk of turning Vietnam into the 51st state of the Union. And, finally, the novel 1984, in which Oceania is (supposedly) a successor state of the unification of the British Empire with the United States of America.
• Confederate States of America: considering the above mentioned idea, it is curious that they are another favourite target for being a "wank". The fact that they were defeated in the American Civil War, and the apparent worship they have of them in parts of the United States nowadays, it is natural to think about what could have happened if they won. Timeline-191 by Harry Turtledove shows the CSA prospering in the post-Civil War world, managing to expand and reach the Pacific Ocean, but slowly reality ensues, as the problems the Confederate nation had (a lower population and industrial base, among other things) show up in many disadvantages. Mockumentary C.S.A.: Confederate States of America has as its premise that the Confederation not only wins in the Civil War, but they actually take over the rest of the nation and impose their slave-holding economy everywhere, but somehow manage to become a powerful and modern nation that has taken over most of America (Canada is the only place safe) and has also invaded Japan, Vietnam and the Middle West under the guise of expanding Christianism to those places (even the author knew that it was fully impossible that everything shown in the mockumentary would ever happen, but his only purpose was to show that race relations in the United States were, and are, not that dissimilar to many things shown in the mockumentary).
• Roman Empire: there are boatloads of them around. For example, the Duology Seekers of the Sky, in which God's Stepson becomes the Roman Emperor? Rome lasts beyond the 20^th Century in a (nearly) iron-less world. The survival of Emperor Pertinax in the book series Romanitas leads to the expansion of the Empire in such a way that it controls Eurasia up to India, half of Africa and nearly all of America, while Japan controls Oceania, South-Eastern Asia and part of Siberia. One of the worlds discovered by the Infinity Patrol, Roma Aeterna, has a Roman Empire that is twice restored and has managed to conquer a good part of the world. And the liberation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate in the trilogy Germanicus, makes the Romans dominate nearly all of Europe and part of Africa, while China dominates Asia, the Aztecs Central and South America, and North America is divided among the three of them.
• British Empire: them from the Perfidious Albion, who once controlled a quarter of the globe along with the Seven Seas, have also had their cases of "wank", some of them very famous. For example, the manga Code Geass has Britannia, the successor of the Empire, as lord and master of the Americas and Oceania (and Japan, at the beginning of the manga), but curiously the British Isles are not part of it, since they were conquered by Napoleon. In The Two Georges, not only do they keep control over the territories they did in real life, but they also have great influence in China, the Ottoman Empire and other parts of Europe. And a third option is The Britwank Empire, which is basically the same thing as The United States of Ameriwank but centered in Great Britain.
• Angevin Empire: a nation that never existed, but that appears many times in alternative history, given the circumstances in which it could have survived. The main adversary of the Infinity Patrol, Centrum, is a product of such a chnge, when the White Ship's travel across the English Channel happens without a problem, keeping France and England united and eventually controlling the world, but cultural advances were much slower than technological ones and the Empire died in the middle of a brutal civil war where thermonuclear, chemical and biological weapons were liberally used by the contendants. Another place in which this empire can be met is in the Lord Darcy books, in which Richard Lionheart survives the siege of Chalus-Chabrol, expanding the Angevin Empire in such a way that most of Western Europe and the Americas are reigned by the Plantagenet and remain that way to the 20^th century - in a world in which magic exists and can be studied as a science (they actually used magic-based technology in here!).
• Poland: for a country that has suffered so much in history (or perhaps because of this), it is somewhat common to see Poland obtain world status. It is not a well known fact that, once upon a time, Poland controlled Lithuania and was one of the most powerful nations of Europe - let's not forget the Polish Winged Hussars that, led by Polish king Jan III Sobieski, attacked the Ottoman army during the Battle of Vienna of 1683, thus winning the war for Christianity - and that is something several alternative history writers have taken into account. The Lord Darcy novels have the Polish Empire as the Angevin Empire's main enemy. And the Conrad Stargard novels feature the Polish engineer that gives name to the stories travel in time from 1986 to 1231 in a time machine, deciding to use his knowledge to turn his nation into the most powerful European nation of the time and give Poland the necessary means to push back the Mongol attack that is to take place in 1241.

And these are not the only Y estos no son los únicos países que han sido mejorados, ni muchísimo menos. A trillón, los hay en la literatura. Eso sí, encontrar una historia que sea buena al mismo tiempo que monta una super-nación que (casi) nunca falla, eso ya es más complicado.
Thanks for reading me, and I hope that next Friday's post will also be of your liking, as well!

Those mad heaps and their (not so) mad drivers

A good part of this blog has been dedicated mostly to people and the historical elements that could have been different, or several books/films/videogames/others dedicated to alternative history. Today, this routine is going to change, and this post will be dedicated to an important, but sometimes little used, element of our history: vehicles. Both the military and civilian kind.

Yes, it is true, military vehicles have influence history thanks to war, particularly during the 20^th century, when war began to become something won by whomever could bring more war vehicles to the battlefield or whoever built the best planes, but maybe, for some of you, the civilian vehicles are not so important. I quote Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Alliec Commander in Europe during World War Two:

The most vital equipment for our successes in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2.5-ton truck and the C-47 plane. Curiously, none of them is designed for combat.

And they certainly did their job well, enormously contributing to the victory in that war, particularly during the Battle of the Bulge, when the American trucks were able to transport two full divisions from France to Belgium in one day.

But, let's go with the idea we are dealing with today: vehicles. Not any kind of vehicle, but vehicles that make appearances in alternative history. There are many ideas in culture about vehicles that never existed, but could have come to life, or that appear a lot in there because they did not have that much influence in real life. And there are so many possibilities...

• Flying cars: yes, there are some in reality, but they have yet to go past the "prototype" phase, and they barely have flight autonomy due to the great consumption of fuel they require just to keep flying. However, films, comics and TV series show them very often. Who does not remember how Doc Brown said that thing about "Where we are going, we won't need roads" before starting up his Delorean DMC-12 and start flying in Back to the Future? The film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also had a flying care, invented by the main character. And, in the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has, as one of its elements, Agent Coulson's car, Lola, which can fly, the same way they did in the old Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. comics.
• Zeppelins and dirigibles: very much ruined in the eyes of the public after the terrible Hindenburg accident of 1937, it is actually a (not completely) undeserved fame, and nowadays scientific and engineering advances have made them more secure and useful. Due to the Imperial Airship Scheme, by which the United Kingdom had the idea to develop a fleet of airships that would connect all parts of the British Empire, and which the accident of the R-101 forced to drop, it is common to see that, if the British Empire remains powerful, the dirigible becomes popular. The Two Georges by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss (yes, the actor), in which the American Revolution does not take place, has dirigibles as the main long distance transport. Doctor Who's chapters "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel", in which the TARDIS accidentally goes to an alternative world where the United Kingdom becomes the Republic of Great Britain, there are zeppelins everywhere. In the last version of The Three Musketeers, one of the elements that changes is the presence of dirigibles, apparently an invention of Leonardo da Vinci. And, in the webcomic Girl Genius, Europe's most powerful noble's base is Castle Wulfenbach, an enormous dirigible that is more than a kilometer in length.
• Mechas: these are huge robots of humanoid form, normally controlled by a human. They tend to be very famous in Japan, where many manga and anime have, as their main characters, mecha pilots, although they do happen to appear among the western public. I am sure that anyone around still remembers Mazinger Z and his "Rocket Punch!" attack, which he used to fight evil. More western are the Power Rangers with those mechas that combined to form a bigger one (though, those fist fights were pitiful). And, more recently, we have the film Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro where the Pacific nations decide to build enormous mechas called Jaegers (after the German word for Hunter) to fight the invading monsters, nicknamed Kaijus.
• Tanks: yes, even tanks belong to this category, even if they exist. For example, Leonardo da Vinci designed in real life a prototype of tank that was the inspiration for many things, such as a scene in the videogame Assassin's Creed II in which Ezio, the main character, rides this tank and pilots it, attacking an enemy position thanks to the cannons that have been mounted on the tank. The Chaos Timeline (which I spoke about in the Genghis Khan post) has Germany as the inventor of the steamtank. And we have three nearly-real facts, what I like to call The Three Teuton Terrors (bad alliteration/pun, I know, but I thought it was hilarious): Maus, Ratte and Monster, the three supertanks invented by the Nazis, none of which were ever built en masse, due to how useless they were (Maus, the smallest, weighted 188 metric tons, while Ratte weighed 1000 metric tons and Monster 1500 metric tons), but they appear in some situations in which the Germans have either won or have access to advanced technology, such as the film Captain America: The First Avenger or the videogame Warfront Turning Point.
• Walking Tank: the European version of the Mecha, with a non-humanoid form and with a well-armed cabin. Generally, though, they are treated as something awesome but impractical, as their legs are a weak point that can be easily taken advantage of (if you don't believe me, ask the pilot of the AT-AT Luke Skywalker destroyed by tying a cable around its legs). The novel Leviathan has the Central Powers invent this type of tank to face against the genetically modified creatures the Entente members are using. The huge devices that give name to the Metal Gear videogame saga are another good example of this kind of vehicle.
• Airborne Carrier: probably one of the most impressive things that could ever be invented. A device that can fly and carry planes at the same time? Any army would love to have one of those: and they appear in many ways: they can be zeppelins capable of carrying one or two planes (they actually were able to do this in reality, although their recover capabilities were not so good) or they can be normal carriers equipped with systems that allow them to fly. Among the latter example is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, an enormous aircraft carrier equipped with four powerful turbines that can rise the ship to a great height, as seen in The Avengers (Marvel's, not England's). The videogame Bioshock Infinite takes place in the floating city of Columbia, which has a fleet of dirigibles. And, to end with, the animation film Up, one of whose most important elements is the dirigible Spirit of Adventure, which carries several planes that have been modified by character Charles Muntz so that they can be piloted by his dogs.

So many possibilities that could have been amazing... did you know that one of the reasons petrol-powered cars won the war against electric cars was the discovery of oil wells in the United States, dropping the value of oil and making it a much more useful choice?

Well, that's all for today. I hope you have had fun with this, that you comment if you have any suggestions, and that I'll be back next Tuesday with another post. See you!

Not only out of Foundations does the alternative scientist live

One of my all-time favourite writers is Russian-American Isaac Asimov, considered one of the best science-fiction writers along with Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein (the Three Great Men of Science-Fiction). I must have read the Trilogy of the Foundation (and its prequels and sequels) a lot of times, as well as a few short story books and other novels I also have here at home.

A very interesting thing about Asimov's writing is that, at least a few of them, have a certain uchronic component that attracts me a lot. This, combined with his genius for the science-fiction writing (and more, as he wrote more than 500 books and has one in every category of the Dewey Decimal System save for Philosophy, and even then he wrote an introduction to a philosophy book) make these stories very entertaining.

The first story I am going to talk about is a short story. In a certain Earth, people have managed to invent a device that is capable to communicate with other Earths (similar to what is used in Infinite Worlds, but more versatile and easier to use) and they use it to, basically, give each family their own Earth, an Earth fully devoid of human life, because there are so many parallel Earths in which either intelligent life never developed or there is not even a breathable atmosphere: the only thing that has to be done is to put an enormouse energy shield around the house, to keep the families protected and the air inside. One of these families complains about strange noises, and when an agent of Earth goes to investigate, he finds out that it is a group of men building large living blocks. After a conversation with them, in which he discovers that the other men come from an Earth where Hitler won World War Two, and who also travel between Earths to establish colonies, but at a larger scale, the Germans leave, accepting that the people from the "original" Earth were the first to be there. However, this is not the end, because they know that, at some point, they could find someone from another Earth that would not be as amiable. The last thing seen is an employee talking about another family seeing some strange red tentacles from their house's windows...

The second story is longer, a huge novel, actually: The End of Eternity. The main character is Andrew Harlan, a man belonging to a society called Eternity, which resides out of the normal space-time and can travel between the 25^th and 70,000^th centuries. Eternity's role is to maintain humanity's happiness and to reduce the damage it causes to itself by making Reality Changes, avoiding wars and technological advances that can negatively affect humanity (this is why I am including it, because they create alternative histories). Harlan is one of the best Technicians, the ones in charge of making Reality Changes a reality (sorry, sorry, it was a very bad pun) and his life changes when he meets Noys, a non-Eternal young woman who falls in love with him, and whom he smuggles into Eternity when he learns that the next Reality Change will erase her from existence. I will not tell you the full story, as I do not want to spoil the ending, but I can tell you that, at the end, a large Reality Change happens when a letter is written that leads to the first experiments with nuclear fission in the 30s, and, as a consequence, towards the atomic bomb and nuclear energy (in Harlan's "past", nuclear energy was invented at some point after the time travel method used by Eternity was invented), causing the End of Eternity, and, according to some fan theories, leading to the Robots' Trilogy and the Foundation Trilogy.

Finally, a third story in which alternative history is really, really well developed, and with the point of divergence placed very early in time: The Gods Themselves (from Friedrich Schiller's quote Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens, "Against stupidity, the gods themselves fight in vain"), a magnificent novel, very recommended to any fan of science-fiction. Asimov had the idea for this novel when other writer (Robert Silverberg) made up the isotope plutonium-186 in front of him, and when Asimov told Silverberg that, not only did that isotope not exist, but that it could not even happen due to the laws of physics, Silverberg replied "So what?". Asimov decided to find out the conditions under which such an isotope could actually exist, and, after concluding that the laws of physics would have to be very different in the hypothetical parallel universe in which plutonium-186 existed in, he started to work out how that parallel universe would work out, as well as write the novel (including scenes in answer to his editor's demand for aliens and sex: he put aliens, sex and alien sex in there).

The novel begins when a scientist called Frederick Hallam finds out that a tungsten-186 sample he had in a jar has been replaced with something else, and after a companion makes a sarcastic remark, Hallam eventually finds out that it is plutonium-186. After some work, Hallam suggests the change has taken place due to the influence of beings coming from a parallel universe, and he invents a device called "electron pump", that easily exchanges our universe's tungsten-186 with the other universe's plutonium-186, producing great quantities of cheap energy in both sides. A young researcher called Lamont discovers that the plutonium-186 introduced in our world is slowly bringing that universe's physical laws into our universe, creating a situation in which the Sun could turn supernova, but he is ignored due to the power Hallam has over the scientific community and the electron pump's cheap, clean energy.

The second part takes place from the point of view of three natives from the parallel universe, the "soft ones". In here, the strong nuclear force (the one that keeps protons and neutrons together in the nucleus) is stronger, and the differences coming from here and enormous: there are barely a few thousands of existing stars, all of which are consuming themselves rapidly, and in the equivalent to Earth lives a species formed by ethereal that "eat" solar energy, and which has three sexes, Emotional, Rational and Parental: these three sexes "mate" by "melting" and physically merging, with the Rational providing the equivalent to sperm, the Emotional providing the energy needed for reproduction and the Parental bearing and raising the offspring. These beings share a planet with others called "hard ones", who provide leadership for the soft ones, but no one between the soft ones knows where the hard ones come from. An Emotional called Dua discovers the electron pump plan, and also that the Earth's sun's transformation has been planned by the hard ones, as it is the only way the soft and hard ones will survive the approaching death of all stars (the only "food" they are getting in quantity is the energy provided by their end of the electron pump). Dua is opposed to that plan, and tries to communicate with Earth to make them stop the electron pump (messages that appear in the first part of the novel) and to convince others to stop their own side, putting her life in risk, but she is unsuccessful. In the end, Dua discovers that she has a lot more to do with the electron pump than what she thought, and also where the hard ones come from.

It is in the third (and final) part when the conclusion is reached: Denison, the scientist whose sarcastic comment sparked Hallam's discovery, travels to the Moon, where people are unsuccessfully trying to develop their own electron pump. Just like Lamont, Denison knows about the danger the exchange of isotopes between universes has for Earth, and he is trying to work out a way to avoid thee problems in such a way that it will not affect either Earth (who will suffer power problems if the pump is not used, and death if it continues to be used) nor the other universe (whose people will die if the pump is not used). He manages to do it successfully, connecting a second pump to another universe to balance the problems that would cause the supernova, but at the same time Denison must stop a conspiracy that pretends to use the new energy source to move the Moon away from Earth orbit.

If you have the time and find any of the above mentioned books (and, in fact, any of Asimov's books), I recommend you to read them, because they are very interesting (even if, by our own standards, some of their technology looks a bit antiquated) and entertaining.

I hope you have liked this post, and that you will enjoy the one I'm writing next Friday. Cheers!

The hard thing about conquering the world on a horse is having to dismount

His name is associated to the idea of war, barbarism and indiscriminate destruction (it is not entirely false, as he spent most of his adult life fighting, he was the leader of a nomad tribe and he ordered to carry out multiple massacres against anyone that faced him), but if there is something that can be said about him is that he was the one that built the bridges between East and West, allowing the crossing of ideas that, eventually, brought the ideas developed in China (paper, blackpowder, pasta) and India to Europe.

It is Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan, the man who managed to unify all the Mongol tribes in one empire, expanding its borders through Asia and becoming a role model (well, not a very good one, considering what he did) for his successors, who would expand their khanates' borders until reaching Russia and Poland, the westernmost point the Mongol riders reached before having to go back home to choose a new Khan after Ögedei's death. If there is something (else) good that can be attributed to Temujin, is his meritocratic policy (giving more power to the people that can demonstrate they can use it correctly) and his religious tolerance towards the conquered people (those they did not massacre, that is).

Temujin's birthdate is unknown, due to the lack of chronicles over the fact. It is known, though, where he was born: a place called Delüün Boldog, nearby the current capital of Mongolia. When he was nine, his father died, and both him and his family were left to their devices by their tribe. After several years living in poverty, and for a time prisoner of his father's old allies, Temujin's star began to change. From his marriage with Börte, who would become his empress, four sons were born: Jochi (about whom it is said he was conceived while Börte was prisoner of one of Temujin's rival tribes), Chagatai, Ögedei and Tolui. They were not the only ones, as Temujin would have several other wives, although these other sons, and all of his daughters, were excluded from succession. They were many, because about 10% of Mongolia descends from him, as well as about 0.2% of the world population. Eventually, Temujin managed to unify many nomad tribes under his rule, as any tribe he defeated was immediately embraced under his protection, inspiring loyalty in them and increasing his power, until he defeated the Naiman and Merkit (the ones that kidnapped his wife) tribes, becoming the only sovereign of the Mongols and taking the title of Genghis Khan. From there, Genghis Khan would begin his large number of conquests, which affected the neighboring kingdoms and khanates to the south and west, such as Western Xia, Khwarezm and the Caucasus, until he died in the year 1227, according to the legend after being castrated by a princess from the last territory he conquered.

Guy was not exactly a paragon of virtues, that's true, but his influence in history has been enormous, perhaps at a level that may only be compared with the actions of people like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, George Washington or Adolf Hitler. Perhaps, even greater.

As logical in this blog, we ask: what if Temujin's life had been different?

Let's begin, once more, with the basics: Genghis Khan dies before he did in real life. If he dies when he is a boy, whether it is when he scraped by with his family or when he was prisoner, then the Mongols never unify. Without that unification, the attacks against the Chinese nations or western Asia never take place, and Persia, India, Russia and Polonia are safe from them, as well. India remains divided in the small sultanates and kingdoms that existed before Akbar arrived. Russia might have remained divided for longer, but without being attacked by the Mongols the unification might have happened sooner, as Novgorod would not have hade to pay tribute to them and manage to reach supremacy earlier, making Russia a firm candidate to the role of most powerful European nation at the time, should they manage to unify.

If he dies after unifying the Mongol tribes, but before he begins his conquest drive beyond there, the situation becomes a bit harder: the Mongols had codified into law the obligation of khans to divide their conquered territory between his sons upon dying, and the main title would be inherited by the heir the father picked. In 1206, his four sons were 25, 23, 20 and 14 years old, so there might not have been much of a problem there, but, given that none of the four would have had a great experience in fighting battles and leading armies, their power would have probably become reduced when the tribes separated.

Something similar would have happened if he had died during his conquests. These would have stopped at the point in which he died, forcing the Mongol generals to return to Mongolia in order to choose the successor or assist to the division of the Empire between the sons. This might have still allowed the exchange of ideas between East and West, but with less destruction in western Asia.

Finally, the fourth option is that he lived beyond the moment in which he officially died. What would Temujin have done in that case? Which direction would he have picked to march with his armies? Novgorod, at the northwest, was the place towards which his successors would move. At the west, the Abbasid Caliphate, the Ayyubid Sultanate, the Seljuks and the Eastern Roman Empire. At the south, India and its riches. At the east, Japan, victim of two Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, only defeated thanks to the kamikaze, or divine wind. And, at the north, Siberia, but that direction can be discarded, for there would not be enough food to feed his horses in there. If he goes northwest, Novgorod might have been able to prevent being attacked by offering tribute, as they did in reality, but if Temujin decides to ignore the offer and attack, we would find that, nowadays, Russia, if it actually existed, would be very different. Going towards the west might have allowed him to eventually take Jerusalem, which would have certainly meant things would get ugly, as Muslims would make almost constant war against the Mongols to free the city, while Christians might have actually made a deal with the Mongols to allow the peregrins to enter the city freely, as, after the Fourth Crusade fiasco (which took place between 1202 and 1204, in which the Eastern Roman Empire suffered a lot, including the sack of Constantinople), it is unlikely that the Christians would be able to send armies. And, if he went to the south, he might be able to unify good part of India before Akbar did at a later point, maybe even allowing India to strengthen and repel the English and Portuguese attempts to establish bases in the Indian subcontinent.

Well, we have already talked about possible changes in history. Now, how about we talk about stories where Temujin's life changes, and the world with it?

Several small scale examples can be found in the role-playing game Infinite Worlds, about which I wrote before. There are many worlds with Genghis Khan and his conquests as the POD. World "Attila" (Infinity Scouts got confused) has as the POD a dream in which Genghis Khan, after taking Beijing, saw how a weed came out of the city and tried to kill his horse, so he decided to destroy the city and declared that Mongols would never build nor live in cities, and all of his successors destroyed all cities they found, leaving Eurasia bereft of any population centers. Japan was saved thanks to the "kamikaze" winds and unified, becoming a power capable of trading with the urbanized tribes in the American Western coast, while in Africa tribes are organizing and the Nigerian Oyo have invented the steam engine... in the local year 2004.

Other worlds found by the Infinity Patrol are "San Tomás", where the Europeans running away from the lands devastated in the Mongol attacks find refuge in Palestine's Crusader States, strengthening them and leading to the eventual conquest of Egypt and destruction of Mecca; and "Tengri", where the Mongol conquests unified the Western and Chinese civilization, sparking the beginning of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 14^th Century. There are not many details about these two worlds, or whether there are more worlds where Genghis Khan was the catalizer that initiated the changes, but there are sure to be many out there.

But, if there is a world that is well developed, taking as the starting point the early death of Temujin, it is The Chaos Timeline, nicknamed by many "the Everest of Alternative History" due to how HUGE it is (a text file with the entire story uses 800 kB). In this world, by the time the story ends in the 21^st Century, America is known as Atlantis, Hollywood is in Rio de Janeiro and is called Paradies, tanks were invented by Germany and called Walzen, Rome was captured by the Seljuks, forcing the Pope to move to France (then to Spain, then to Great Britain and finally to Australia/Antipodia, because France becomes a secular republic, conquers Spain and Great Britain becomes Socialist), the greatest world power is Germany, which controls the Americas... thousands of changes on such a small detail. It is a very long and interesting lecture.

As much as I keep searching, finding more about alternative Genghis Khans is very, very complicated. I'm sure there will be more things around, but I have not been able to find them. I hope that, in spite of this, you have liked this post. Thanks for reading, and I will come back next Tuesday with a new post for you to enjoy.

Rewriting stories the way you want

It is very probable that, at some point or another, you might have read a book or seen a TV series or a movie where a scene takes place that makes you sigh or angry, and then you would wish to be able to catch whoever wrote those scenes and say "Damnit! This scene is complete nonsense! Change it or I'll tear you a new one!" and everything else that goes with it, or maybe you had an idea that would change things around a lot. Of course, it might also be possible that you could think how your favorite characters would work out somewhere else, how new characters would change things after being introduced to the story, or even that you would like to cross your favorite characters' paths with that of characters from other works.

If you have, then it is quite possible that you may have already joined the world of fanfiction, or, at least, that you are ready for it.

Why am I talking about fanfiction when this is a blog about alternative history? Well, basically, it is because, if you think about it carefully, alternative history is but fanfiction of history, written by either professional writers or amateurs. Also, in many occasions fanfiction includes several elements of alternative history, so, from that point of view, fanfiction is as deserving of being studied as alternative history.

The history of fanfiction is almost as ancient as the history of literature - obviously, there have always been people that have wanted to put their own artistic touch to any work they found - and the Homeric sagas or Aesop's fables are just a few of the works "affected" by this phenomenon. In modern literature, works like El Lazarillo de Tormes or Don Quixote have also gone through the same - remember Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, whom I already mentioned when I wrote about the Battle of Lepanto and who wrote an apocryphal sequel to Cervantes' work, which Cervantes answered with his own - and the same happened with works like Alice in Wonderland or Sherlock Holmes' adventures.

At the beginning, the term fanfiction was used to talk about science-fiction stories written by fans for fanzines (fan-magazines), but around the 60s and 70s the idea of developing new stories based on already existing cultural works began to expand, among them Star Trek, considered the first universe to have a serious fanfiction following. The one thing that sparked the explosion of fanfiction was the Internet, as fans were able to communicate and share ideas, and literature, comics and other audiovisual entertainment joined. Normally, the Internet webpages where these stories were written in were quite specific about the topic it was written about or the background, but in 1998 the website FanFiction.net, open to all past, present and future fandoms, was created, and the number of fanfiction grew like a weed - certain statistics say that a third of the books that are on the Internet are actually fanfiction. And, although they are not many, some fanfiction authors have been able to become professional writers: for example, Judith Rumelt, better known as Cassandra Clare thanks to her saga The Mortal Instruments, was previously a fanfiction author known for "The Draco Trilogy" (based on Harry Potter, and with Draco Malfoy as one of the main characters) and "The Very Secret Diaries" (with The Lord of the Rings as the background).

This phenomenon also made an impression in Japan between the 60s and the 70s thanks to the dōjinshi, independently-published manga that, in many cases, were also based on already-existing manga. Much like in the case of fanfiction, several dōjinshi writers and artists managed to become professional manga authors.

Currently, if we pay attention to what FanFiction.net tells us, the universe that more fanfictions have been written about is Harry Potter, with more than 685,000 existing stories, some as short as about 100 words (what is called a drabble) and others that are much longer than the seven Harry Potter books put together. The next in popularity are the anime Naruto with about 362,000 stories, and Twilight with 216,000. While some authors have welcomed, and even embraced, the idea of fanfiction, others have rejected this idea wholeheartedly: for example, Anne Rice, the author of Interview with the Vampire, even said that she was willing to sue anyone that tried to write fanfiction of her works, even if it was not for profit.

Of course, the quality of these stories can vary. In the side of infamy, there are "works" that not only are bad, but that they seem to be bad on purpose, full of ortographic errors, plot holes the size of ocean liners, characters that behave in completely irrational ways in comparison to the canon characters... in summary, complete massacres of the originals that should have never seen the light of day. Meanwhile, on the side of light, there are works that are pure art, with well written and developed story lines, characters that change in natural and credible ways, wonderful descriptions of everything that is going on... things that, in different circumstances, could have become best-sellers or blockbuster films.

Another interesting element of fanfiction is the possibility of easily making crossovers (interaction between character of different universes), and if they are well written they feel as if they were other books. This, of course, depends on which universes are being mixed, but, still, a good combination with a good development of how the universes are actually related, can make reading a very entertaining and interesting thing to do.

One thing I have to admit is that I really like fanfiction. Nowadays, I am following several of them - I read on my free time, of course - and awaiting their next chapter, and some of them are incredibly good. I have also tried my hand in the art of writing some of them, and the readers (those that deign to say anything, of course) normally answer that they liked them. It does not look like much, but it feels quite good to know there are people who like what I write *ahemahem*.

Some stories I have read and are specially good:

• The Wizard in the Shadows (Harry Potter/The Lord of the Rings crossover): after defeating Voldemort, Harry begins to feel the pressure of being Magical Britain's great hero, and asks Dumbledore's portrait to help him. Dumbledore suggests him to travel to a small town known as Bree, calm and tranquil, but some time after arriving he becomes involved in the intrigues of this new world and later joins a group formed by four hobbits, two humans, an elf, a dwarf and a wizard in a mission to destroy the only thing that keeps the most terrible of Dark Lords alive... (yes, Harry Potter joins the Fellowship of the Ring, and it is worth the time).
• Child of the Storm (Harry Potter/Marvel's The Avengers crossover): when he appeared, out of nowhere, in the middle of New Mexico, this was not the first time Thor lived on Earth. Once, he had been incarnated in a British wizard known as James Potter to learn humility, and when Voldemort attacked the Potters he did not die: instead, he returned to Asgard, and his memories of his life as James had to be blocked. Twelve years later, when Harry Potter falls from his broom due to the Dementors, his desperate call for help makes Thor recover his memories, and he returns to the world to save the son he did not know he had. From there, events begin to interweave, with Death Eaters (Voldemort's followers) allying with HYDRA in its war against SHIELD, and beginning a war between worlds that could put everyone in danger.
• Ned Stark Lives (A Song of Ice and Fire): when Eddard Stark is taken in front of Baelor's Sept to confess his "treason" towards Robert and Joffrey, it turns out that the latter is ill, so he is unable to order the execution of Lord Stark. Ned is sent towards the wall, accompanied by his disguised daughter, while the War of the Five Kings rages around them. However, things change a lot, as Eddard remaining alive makes the North retire from the war much earlier, allowing them to better recover their lands after the Ironmen attack, while other problems surge and make things complicate themselves with time.
• Emperor (Harry Potter): an interesting case of a mix of alternative history that later becomes fanfiction. When Robert Schuman is unable to convince the European governments to start the Coal and Steel Economic Community (the European Union's ancestor), the continent remains divided, only kept in peace thanks to North American and British pressure. The United Kingdom is more militarized than normal, while Germany remains divided for longer and France is the main European power. When Voldemort attacks the Potters, they manage to draw him into a trap and destroy him, but, having lost their wands and now defenseless, they decide to run away for the continent to avoid being manipulated by Dumbledore. When, years later, Harry asks his parents why they are relocating so much, and his parents tell him what is going on, Harry decides to win the power he needs so that neither him nor his family will have to continue running awy. The result is that history has changed a lot, including several wars that take a hold of Europe, particularly after magic is accidentally revealed to the world, while Harry manages to point to the highest echelons of power...

Any story can be interesting if well treated, and become a work of art in the hands of particularly any person. The first obstacle is, of course, knowing what you are going to write about.

See you next Friday!