Editing 2149: Alternate Histories
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Alternate histories are a common device in speculative fiction. One of the most common (even cliche) uses of alternate history is to posit a world in which the {{w|Hypothetical Axis victory in World War II|Axis Powers achieved victory in World War II}}. This is presumably so compelling because it was a relatively recent event in which a series of relatively minor changes could have altered world history in major ways. One of the standard literary works along this line is Philip K. Dick's ''{{W|The Man in the High Castle}}'', where the world is split into spheres of influence controlled by the {{W|Empire of Japan}} and {{W|Nazi Germany}}. This novel has been developed into a {{w|The Man in the High Castle (TV series)|popular TV series}} of the same name on Amazon Prime. | Alternate histories are a common device in speculative fiction. One of the most common (even cliche) uses of alternate history is to posit a world in which the {{w|Hypothetical Axis victory in World War II|Axis Powers achieved victory in World War II}}. This is presumably so compelling because it was a relatively recent event in which a series of relatively minor changes could have altered world history in major ways. One of the standard literary works along this line is Philip K. Dick's ''{{W|The Man in the High Castle}}'', where the world is split into spheres of influence controlled by the {{W|Empire of Japan}} and {{W|Nazi Germany}}. This novel has been developed into a {{w|The Man in the High Castle (TV series)|popular TV series}} of the same name on Amazon Prime. | ||
| β | At one point, ''The Man in the High Castle'' discusses the fiction of their own world, which includes their own alternate histories in which the Allies had won the war instead. ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' is one such novel. Because these stories are speculative, they don't entirely match the 'real' history of our world, differing in key ways. This results in an "alternate-alternate" history where the Allies won World War II, but the details still differ rather significantly than the history of World War II in our reality -- most notably, ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' depicts a post-World War II world defined by a {{w|Cold War}} between the United States and the British Empire, rather than one between the United States and Soviet Union. In one sense, this functions as a meta-critique of the very concept of alternate histories, highlighting the reality that we can never know the details of what would have happened if history had gone differently. | + | At one point, ''The Man in the High Castle'' discusses the fiction of their own world, which includes their own alternate histories in which the Allies had won the war instead. ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' is one such novel. Because these stories are speculative, they don't entirely match the 'real' history of our world, differing in key ways. This results in an "alternate-alternate" history where the Allies won World War II, but the details still differ rather significantly than the history of World War II in our reality -- most notably, ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' depicts a post-World War II world defined by a {{w|Cold War}} between the United States and the British Empire, rather than one between the United States and Soviet Union. (In reality, if the allies had lost the war, speculative fiction concerning an allied victory would more likely have predicted a Cold War between Russia and China. In his memoir ''Inside the Third Reich'', Albert Speer recounts a conversation in which Hitler said that the United States and the British Empire were too racially diverse to become the most powerful nations in the world and that Russia was the only allied power that was sufficiently racially uniform to do so. If Germany and Japan had won the war, this would have been taken as confirmation of the superiority of racially uniform societies over racially diverse societies, and therefore writers of speculative fiction would have believed a dominant Russia or China more plausible than a dominant Britain or U.S. Ironically, the real end of the war proved the value of diversity: Jews fleeing the Nazis played a critical role in the development of the nuclear weapon that the U.S. used to defeat Japan.) In one sense, this functions as a meta-critique of the very concept of alternate histories, highlighting the reality that we can never know the details of what would have happened if history had gone differently. |
In this comic, Megan and Cueball discuss this fictional device. Then in typical xkcd fashion, things start to get exaggerated to ridiculous proportions: Megan points out that, if characters in our stories have their own fiction, then the characters in their stories presumably have their own body of fiction, and so on, creating a recursive loop. If each alternate history contains its own alternate history, presumably each iteration would deviate more and more from our own reality, because each would be speculation based on increasing layers of speculation. Eventually (by the 500th iteration) the history would differ so wildly from our own as to be completely absurd to us, with very few elements being even recognizable. | In this comic, Megan and Cueball discuss this fictional device. Then in typical xkcd fashion, things start to get exaggerated to ridiculous proportions: Megan points out that, if characters in our stories have their own fiction, then the characters in their stories presumably have their own body of fiction, and so on, creating a recursive loop. If each alternate history contains its own alternate history, presumably each iteration would deviate more and more from our own reality, because each would be speculation based on increasing layers of speculation. Eventually (by the 500th iteration) the history would differ so wildly from our own as to be completely absurd to us, with very few elements being even recognizable. | ||
