Nothing fancy, this time. Just a faux Time Magazine (well, Cross-Time Magazine) with my attempt to do that "diverging worlds" graphic that so many comic books likes to use.

Oh! And to answer all those people who say I don't put Point of Divergence or the issue number in obviously enough...heck, you can even see it in the thumbnail! <g>

re: "Had Shakespeare been born fifty years earlier...": ...then he probably wouldn't be "Shakespeare." While genetics grants certain abilities/limits, people are products of their life's events. And those, of course, are products of the time they're in. Different time > Different Events > Different Person.

Who knows how many "could have been a Shakespeares" were born, lived, and died during times when the conditions needed to turn them from "could have" to "were" just didn't exist.

re: Deja Vu Trolleys: "...in spite of the events in Deja Vu happening mere months post-Katrina...were such vehicles and running so soon?" According to what I've found on the web, all three lines were knocked out by Katrina (mostly due to wire damage and power problems, but some actual rail and trolley damage too). Portions of the Canal St. line were back in operation, though, by December - with the rest of that line and the Riverfront line back up "in early 2006." The St. Charles Ave line took the longest to return to service, since large chunks of its route were in areas that were actually flooded by levee breaches (for the final section of the line, it was not up until June of this year!). Ironically, this is the line that ends up in films the most (as it's the most "scenic").

Since the movie's set during Mardi Gras, it would almost have to be the Canal St. line...though it could be Riverfront...but I bet the one in the film (which I haven't seen yet) is the St. Charles line.

ct: Me: "Wouldn't a Celtic repulsion of the Romans...rule out the appearance of anything like an American revolt in 1776?" Oh heck yeah. That's probably the least of it.

But, honestly, most Japanese anime writers don't have any stronger grasp of real history than most American cartoon writers - and of course, their grasp of history outside of Japan is even worse: At least as bad as their State-side counterparts grasp of non-U.S. history (and both seem to get their continental Asian history mostly from Hong Kong Kung Fu films...). Heck, I'm surprised they came up with something this original as a POD myself.

I mean, think of all the PODs in Sliders - and how magically they changed only one thing in the entire history of the world (even if those PODs went back literally millions of years). On the whole, at least Code Geass tries to change more than one thing (even if one of those "more than's" is the invention of giant robots).

        re: Virtual Life: "...but I'm skeptical about the chance of repopulating them on land retaken from development...or settling them on other planets; the latter would require terraforming, which can't be done overnight." Oh, true on both counts. But barring permanent collapse of civilization (and assuming really good backups with zero decay rate), the "Matrix Zoos" have literally all the time they need. Heck, assume that all humans eventually get to live at "first world" levels. Given that living at such seems to result in a sub-replacement birth-rate, in a couple of hundred years at most, we'll have lots of spare land laying around (some study or another showed that Japan would be empty of Japanese by 3,000 C.E. given present trends).

And if terraforming takes millenia to finish, well, it takes that long to finish - again, the V-Zoo can wait (and lots of its residents would probably end up being part of the terraforming process).

I'm not saying there aren't big problems with the idea, I'm just saying most of them are exactly the same problems saving species via real-world zoos and such face (like "do we ever get to reintroduce them?"), without some of the biggest problems those same zoos have (lack of variety, lack of numbers, lack of a budget in recession years...).

        re: The Wager: "I hadn't considered that and altered timeline could result from someone merely thinking about inventing a time machine at a later date." Though the comic doesn't answer the question why does the time machine still get built if the person who would build it isn't keen on the results. If thinking "I should build a time machine" can get you all the end results of that thought (i.e.: A time machine and any alternate histories it might cause), then - seeing the result - thinking "Bad Idea. I won't build a time machine" should put you back to a universe in which one isn't built and reverse the effects of one having/will have existing.

Larry Niven once postulated that in any universe where time travel was possible...and travelers could change the past...and there was but a single timeline...the past eventually would keep changing chaotically until it finally settled on the only stable history - one where a time machine is never invented.

re: Can Mexico Retain California?: There's probably ways (heck, I've used some over the years here). But I strongly suspect that if it has to do so militarily - IOW, by actually defeating U.S. forces in California - then the cause is lost. As you pointed out, they'd have to move an army through some of the worst desert territory imaginable (and through the Yuma Indians...which is it's own kind of "worst territory...") before they can even get to California.

Worse, from a Mexican standpoint, California is decidedly not the important area to defend or try and retake. No one's going to send troops that far from the capital when the U.S. could still send another army in - and it'd be Texas or New Mexico they'd be aiming at for reconquest, because they're both far more important than a few thousand cattle ranchers in an area whose sole export is cow-hide.

The question then becomes: If the U.S. loses the war (or it stalemates), what is the disposition of California in the peace treaty? I suspect that in most cases the U.S. gets at least Northern California (north of the Bay Area, possibly as far down as Monterrey) and unless the U.S. does horribly, horribly badly in the war...and Mexico's choice at the conference table is between holding onto California...or holding onto (a reduced) Texas...well...

I suspect that it would take a lot of changes to get a "thriving, rich California" by 1800 that was thriving and rich enough to actually pay for itself, let alone kick something noticeable into Spanish coffers. Discovering gold might do it...or it might end up getting Mexico (or California by itself) going for an earlier independence.

And, yeah, I also think that California would think of itself as "separate" from the rest of Mexico, come revolution time. Certainly it did on OTL.

I'm not sure Mexico could pull off a enhanced immigration scheme for California that didn't end up with most of the immigration being from the U.S. - even assuming it could get people to immigrate at all. It certainly tried to do something like this with New Mexico and Texas, to little effect (failing so badly with Texas that getting immigrates from the U.S. was the only solution). Even assuming they can work up a big influx from Europe, I can't see them directing that stream anywhere other than (as you said) Texas, New Mexico, and what's now Northern Mexico. Heck, even southern Arizona's likely to get more folk shoved at it than California!

There was basically just too much open land a lot closer to the heart of Mexico than the Californian boonies were for the people who were immigrating to and around Mexico. Oh, discovering gold would change that...but in order to discover gold, you almost need to already have more people traipsing around California (especially farther inland than that fifty miles from the coast that held 99% of them). And of course, in order to have more people there you...um...pretty much have to have discovered the gold...

...very Catch-22-ish, this.

Worse, if you do get that many people (and gold) in California, then the place becomes even more attractive to U.S. traders (on OTL, for example, Santa Fe did most of its trading with the States, rather than with Mexico proper). A hundred-thousand people (with ample gold) is a huge market for them and they're better placed than Mexico to jump on that trade, both by sea and overland.

And they're going to inevitably drag along their own tail of immigration from the U.S...which given the gold-rush conditions is going to swamp even the larger "Mexican" population, especially since most of it is going to be "Mexican" in name only.

Now assuming the no Texas takeover scenario, with U.S. expansion deflected north, I think there's going to come a time when "north" starts creeping "south." While the "Adams-Onis Treaty Line" puts most of what's now the western United States south of what's now the southern Oregon border on the Mexico side of the line, in reality apart from a thin strip of coastal California, and New Mexico along the Rio Grand up to Taos, most of this land was (from a U.S. standpoint³) basically empty. Heck, even California north of the Bay Area is remarkably deficient in Mexican nationals...and the two-hundred and fifty odd miles between there and Oregon would be a snap for "Oregon" bound immigrates to "accidentally" move in to.

'Cause it's not like there's a border fence, or anything. People heading west from the rest of the States are going to - with increasing frequency as time goes on - start drifting into areas south of the border. When gold is (eventually) discovered in California, even if they can't get to California itself (say Mexico moves a few ten-thousands of troops to control the territory), prospectors are going to start fanning out through this "empty" land. And they're going to find things worth risking a far-off Mexican army for.

I think this scenario ends up setting up things for a U.S/Mexican conflict in the second half of the 19^th century, probably by the 1870s at the latest. How much the U.S. would take (if it won) I couldn't guess, but I'd bet on the border moving at least a couple of hundred miles south.

Over the years, my website's been at several places - first at Geocities back when they had really stupid "street addresses" like...addresses, moving on to several other places as time when by and finally ending up at Earthlink.

I left "forwarding" pages at the old sites (some of which are - surprisingly - still there after six, eight years) and tried to contact everyone who I knew had links to my sites, but I suspect there's still some bad links out there.

(quick google...Alternate History webring still has my old address...but webrings are so 1990s anyway, I don't really care)

re: "Char" - Revised Beginning: Well, it's been a while since I read the beginning of Char of course, but the revised version does seem to flow a bit better.

"Make it shorter, tighter" seems to be an almost generic theme for teachers of writing. Heck, even my film teacher (making films, not viewing them) said (roughly) "there isn't any scene that can't be edited shorter." I'm not absolutely sure this is true in all cases,⁴ but it does seem to work here.

OTOH, the additional scene, while having some nice bits, doesn't really add anything to the story of Char. A bit of backstory on her world is nice...but it really is irrelevant to the main plot and basically just slows things down...

...however, since you are writing a sequel, this might be nicely ported over to it instead. That would be a ideal place to have a bit of "recap" that also gives us new information - something all too rare in such things in sequels. Obviously, it'll need a rewrite to fit there rather than where it is now, but...

re: "Blip": Interesting - But you're going to hate this:

Different from your - way different, judging by your excerpt (and his), but...

BTW, I'm not sure two-thousand people - even with modern fishing techniques - could deplete a pre-contact fishing area in just two years if they're just feeding themselves with it...this is a nit, however - and one I could be wrong about anyway.

re: "Everything's Back to Normal": Okay, creepy world you've got there. Of course, in the real world, studies show that security cameras everywhere don't seem to have much (if any) effect on crime. ;)

Might I suggest you shop it around in England?

re: NanoWrite Thoughts: Interesting - certainly I'd like to see the results.

I more or less understand why the ban on things going to the "factor" timeline, but why the one for bringing data back? Unless it's to hide the fact the "weak spots" exist - which it obviously isn't if even the U.N. is ruling on trade with this other world (the cat is obviously well out of any and all bags if it's at that level of knowledge) - or to prevent "the factor" from somehow "contaminating" our world and stagnate us.

re: The Era of Solar Energy - pt3: Used to - as I am - the "Moore's Law" advances in computers (and declines in prices), the advances (declines) in solar cells seem almost glacially slow. I mean, nine years and they haven't even halved the cost per watt yet.

While the financial crisis might delay the "take off" a bit, it also might help it, as investors desperately hunt around for things that won't tank the next time there's bad news at the stock market.

Oil, well, I strongly suspect the drop oil prices is a very short term artifact. Given any sort of recovery at all, and they'll shoot back up (though I doubt they'll get to their high water mark again for years - I feel at least a third of that rise was due to speculation rather than actual "barrels on the ground." That's one of the reasons the prices went down so much faster than they went up). In fact, I'll make a prediction that this time next year, prices will be more or less $80-$90 a barrel (in current dollars).

re: Germany Takes Holland: "Maybe Japan takes advantage of the attack to go after the Dutch East Indies. Would Belgium stay neutral under these circumstances? Would Britain and France?" I assume you mean neutral to Japan - we're already way past the cut-off date for neutrality to Germany.

Anywho, if Germany had Holland, wouldn't Britain and France try themselves to snap up the Dutch East Indies, since to do otherwise would to leave them nominally under the control of Germany (or worse, under conflicting "governments in exile"). They were a bit busy to be trying this on OTL, but here they've got some "slack time."

re: Britain rules the seas with an iron fist: I personally can't see them trying this - heck, I have trouble seeing any regime trying this one - but it seems to me a fast way to run through the treasury building and maintaining the huge increase their navy would need, while at the same time strangling a lot of their own trade and possibly sending things into a worldwide recession/depression that would hurt the bottom line even more.

Or, IOW, it's a fast way to bankrupt Britain by 1825, 1830.

ct: Me: "Wow. If you don't like something even vaguely trolley-like it must have been a really bad experience." Not so much a "bad experience" as a disappointing one.

The monorail in Vegas - as built - is simply not a viable mass transit system, for all the reasons I outlined. And after half a century of monorail operations around the world, those sorts of problems simply should not exist. It's basically like finding your municipal bus system is composed of wooden-bodied buses powered by straight-six gas engines and totally lacking in air-conditioning.

This means either that they did a really crappy job (which is always possible), or that monorails simple don't have a future as mass transit (which would be really annoying - and make it difficult to explain how Disney does it at Disney World). Obviously, I'd like to think it's the first reason - but even if it is, opponents to monorails can easily use it as an example of the second reason.

And if it is the second reason, "Alweg-LA" has gone the way of "Successful Sealion" AH scenarios...which would be seriously uncool...

re: Cover (POD 50): "And I must confess that some of my favourite covers are the ones with people in them." Unfortunately, since I was limited to only my own covers for this (if, admittedly, mostly through laziness), covers with people in them were thin on the ground. Heck, I think the only other "human" cover was the one with the Marx Brothers and Lenin in it.

That's a result of my likes, of course, for maps and "objects from another world" and other debris from Alternate Histories...

ct: Tom Cron (POD 52): "With the border being a major river, it would be almost impossible to see how an accident on the border could occur." One possible way is when the Mississippi does one of its frequent bed moves. Suddenly, a chunk of ground that was French is on the British side of the river (or vice versa). If that chunk happens to have something important on it (a town, a fort, something) there's a non-zero chance that border arguments could get nasty, with one side arguing that, hey, the border's the river, and it's on our side now and the other (perhaps more rationally) pointing out that the border's the river at the time of the border agreement, not where it is now or might someday be.

I'm not saying you could get a war over this...but stupider things have started them.

ct: Me: ct: You: "Our problem...was caused by pigeon and gull guano...blocking some downsizes" That still doesn't reassure me much. One, I mean, we've got pigeons too (and crows and ravens and woodpeckers and such) so something similar could happen - and since we already have hawks (and owls) actually living in the area - and that hasn't scared off the pigeon population any - I'm sure we could have a problem like yours quite easily.

And, two, the work's being done by a company that already built a roof (well, rebuilt) - a solid roof, no skylights, no atriums, just a flat roof - here on campus that leaked badly in the rain. Who knows what they can do with framed glass...

ct: Dale Cozort: "Admittedly, learning basic avoidance tactics and plotting a revenge attack are big leaps of intelligence, but who knows?" Heck, they're already apparently bright enough to figure out how to hide an entire elephant!

re: "After Laurens' Men": Interesting - but I wouldn't know where to go with it (heck, I'm stuck enough with my own TrolleyWorld mystery - I certainly don't need writer's block on someone elses...<grin>).

Ummm, what's an "overloaded hard drive"? Too full?

ct: Nuttal: "It takes place aboard a space going version of the Titanic...I forgot the name of the episode." It was Voyage of the Damned - the "Christmas special" between the third and fourth series.

ct: Me: "Did you see 'Tora Tora Tora?" One of the last scenes of that movie shows two American carriers entering Pearl Harbor several hours after the attack." Yep, saw it. It's even reasonably accurate, in a Hollywood kind of way. So the scene is correct-ish...if don't mind that by "several hours" you have to mean about thirty-six to one-hundred and sixty-eight of them...

You see, in the real world, Enterprise actually didn't enter the harbor until the night of the 8^th. And the Lexington didn't pull in until the 13^th - which not only wasn't at the same time as Enterprise's by nearly a week, it was four days after Enterprise had already left the harbor again.

I'm afraid the movie's what we in the business call "fic-tion." The two carriers pulling in at the same time right after the attack looked real good on the silver screen as they sailed past the freshly smoking remains of Pearl...so it was shot that way. That in real life they didn't enter right after the attack, nor do so together, nor even be in the harbor at the same time is irrelevant - it got trumped by the needs of a good scene, like most Hollywood "history" does.

So, no carriers coming in together on the 7^th, no carriers getting sunk in the channel together on the 7^th, no six months of blockage (no blockage at all!)...

...and your whole scenario ends up being the one sinking.

Oh, and Honolulu Harbor is (at the time) just as deep (or shallow) as Pearl. Doing stuff there would be a bitch - but would be far from impossible, especially since they only have to do it for a few months.

And, yes, I can see "how the ripple effects might make World War II on this timeline unrecognizable by early 1945." I just can't see how any of that unrecognizability would include Japan doing better by 1945 (if the U.S. Is following a "Pacific First" rather then "Europe First" strategy, well, Japan goes down first...by early 1945 at the latest, possibly in mid-1944), nor Germany having enough time (to say nothing of resources) to develop an atomic bomb. The ripples might make for an "Iron Curtain" ending up somewhere just east of France rather than Eastern Europe, but Germany getting a nuke (other than one carried by a B-29), hah!

re: "If Washington Had Become King": Interesting royal family tree there - though of course, if the Washington family actually became U.S. royalty, there's almost zero chance any of the people on that tree past the third king (or possibly even the second) would exist. If nothing else, being royalty would almost assuredly change who they got to marry, how many kids they had (and when), and so forth.

Or, IOW, you can't change just one thing...

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