What is alternate history? is it same as parallel universe?

Question: What is alternate history!? is it same as parallel universe!?
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Alternate history is a type of science fiction!. Parallel universes are sometimes used as a plot device in the stories, but not all the time!.

Another device can be parallel evolution!. That is that there are so many planets, an unlimited amount, that it is mathematically possible for another planet to develop like Earth did with a similar history!. The theme is implemented different ways, but the result is the same!. Another Earth or more in this universe!.

This device was used several times in Star Trek the original series under the heading Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development!. There was the one where they ran into a 20th Century version of the Roman Empire!. Another was where they landed on a planet devastated by World War III and only inhabited by children survivors!. There was another one that was post-world war III where Americans were reduced to barbarian tribes like a bad Conan movie!.

In a sense, Alternate History is based on the nail!. For want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe, a horse was lost, for want of a horse, a rider is lost, for want of a rider, a message was lost, for want of a message, the battle was lost and the nation was lost!. All for want of a nail!.

In Alternate History stories, the writers look for a nail to loose and then build a world based on that single event!. The undisputed master of Alternate History fiction is Harry Turtledove!. One of his stories is based on the battle of Antietam!. In real history, Antietam was a draw!. The Confederates didn't loose, but they were so bloodied that it shook them!. It was enough of a win to let Lincoln announce the Emancipation Proclamation!.

The key to the Union's survival in the battle was that a copy of the Confederate battle plan was lost and recovered by the Union!. This is a very possible nail!. If the plans had been lost, the Confederates could have totally defeated the Union at Antietam like they had been doing regularly!.

In Turtledove's Alternate History, the Confederate Victory is enough to convince France and Britain to interfere in the conflict!. With their power added to the Confederacy, the Union was forced to negotiate peace on Southern terms!.

He continued this universe through almost ten books!. He showed World War I where the Confederate States sided with their old allies Britain and France while the United States sided with Germany!. The horrors of World War I battlefields in Tennessee, Virginia, etc!.

The last books went through World War II where the Adolph Hitler figure was a psychotic ex-Confederate soldier and the South became the Nazi Germany type nation!. The Holocaust happened to the blacks of the South instead of Jews in Europe!.

My favorite is by Turtledove and co-authored by the actor Richard Dreyfus (Jaws, Close Encounters)!. It's called The Two Georges!. It refers to a famous but fictitious painting of George Washington and delegation of colonists meeting King George III before things got out of hand so the revolution was avoided considerably!. The story takes place in a very different 1996!.

No American revolution means no cause for the French Revolution!. No French Revolution means no Napoleonic wars!. No Napoleonic wars means no rise of Prussia as the leading German State!. No Prussian leadership means no unification of Germany into a militaristic nation!. No united Germany means no World War I!. No World War I means no Adolph Hitler coming to power for a second round so no World War II!. No World War II, no Holocaust!.

British rule continued in America!. Slavery was ended along with the rest of the British Empire with a stroke of a pen!. No American civil war or its like!. The British did take over go all the way to California so British North America is basically what is in our world Canada and the United States!. Chicago is called Astoria!. Washington D!.C!. is called Victoria!. The Governor General of British North America is Sir Martin Luther King, and Richard Nixon is a used car salesman!.

All these lack of wars also slowed down technology!. It's 1996, but the tech is like late 1930s!. Television has just been invented and air travel is done by blimp!.

also, because of strict British gun control, Los Angles (called New Liverpool in this America) had a record 6 gun crimes in 1995!.

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You could see it that way, but not quite!.

An alternate history is " what if A would have happend instead of B " scenario!.

Parallel Universe is similar to this one, yet subtly (or not so subtly) different!.

What if JFK hadn`t been shot!?
Or, in Parallel Universe C JFK lived to be 95!.!.!.

So - alternate history is what might have happened, while a parallel universe is what is happening, but elsewhere!.
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No!. Alternate history is what you read in the school books!. A parallel universe is another time that totally exists from our own, but in that universe, stuff is slightly off!. With alternate history, they change stuff or delete things so that you learn the cleaner version!.!.!.!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

Alternate just means what if history was a differnt way

there's a author Turtledove i think, that does tons of books on it

What if the South had won

What if During the civil war aliens helped!.

what if hitler had won

tons of them
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