Just a ramble about #alternatehistory given that it's been on my mind recently.
Alternate history has an unfortunately well deserved reputation for attracting the worst kind of wish fulfillment, ranging from chauvinism to full blown genocidal intent.
When community curation is not active, alternate history can even enable the normalisation of such things.
Even outside of this, attention within the genre often concentrates on the same 'what if' moments again and again.
One would easily be forgiven for, after a cursory glance, assuming that Alternate History was solely fixated on World War 2, World War 1, and the American Civil War, with the occasional interest in the fates of either one of the Western or Eastern Roman Empires.
Not only that, that it was fixated purely on political and military history. On various excuses to paint maps different colours or give coloured blobs on maps different labels. On relict imperial-nationalisms of the 20th century.
But, even as a trained #historian that considers the creation of alternate history a fundamentally separated activity from writing history, I actually do think that alternate history, or allohistory as it's sometimes called, has significant value.
Both for layperson and trained historian alike, it can act as a reminder that the human past was not a set narrative with predetermined outcomes. That history was not fated nor foretold. I genuinely think this is a vital thing to remember at all times
Likewise, though alternate history is commonly used to explore scenarios that don't really threaten any kind of disruption to the status quo of public historical #reception, or to the perception of our present reality, that need not be the case.
There are authors in the medium who are willing to explore more oblique possibilities, even kinder possibilities, that don't fall into these same patterns and assumptions. It's not just possible to use alternate history in this way, it has been done
It's just that many of these explorations exist as threads on now ancient forums, or as the descriptions of images posted on gallery-hosting websites, rather than as famous published alternate history.
It's a weirdly stark illustration of the gap between the kind of creative authorship shared with small communities and the perception that the only acts of cultural creation that matter must be either marketed or wedged firmly into the public sphere. Ephemera as a description of substance, almost
For instance, in the community attached to alternate history dot com, there is a famous timeline on those forums called Lands of Red and Gold, by Jared Kavanagh. It asks 'what if pre-contact aboriginal australians had developed sedentary, agrarian societies'.
It's practically a cornerstone of the medium within that community, and Jared has begun the work of publishing the timeline. Yet in terms of 'widely known' alternate history it's almost unheard of.
This is a dynamic I'm sure that folks outside of the alternate history community will immediately recognise.
Also familiar will be my lament about this dynamic- those who would benefit most from the use of alternate history often feel it's a genre that doesn't belong to them. What is broadcast as the mainstream of the medium alienates those who don't fit inside those implicit preferences. Works that would likely resonate with them more are significantly harder to find.
Knowing that the past might have been different is also a tool to remind us that the present can be different.
This is not just a generically important, valuable lesson for humanity at large. It's a vital tool for the marginalised and minoritised, in whose hands alternate history becomes another missile to be launched at the great wall declaring that things are the way they are because they just are, or because they need to be, or because they can't be changed.
As much as I feel there's an intellectual value to alternate history, I don't think its power ends there.
In the tarmac that chauvinist, nationalist thought tries to lay upon the genre I would have the deep roots of marginalised and minoritised communities erupt.
As loud as the timelines that function as cacophonous paeans to conquest and empire are, they are created from a place of fragility.
Nor must we concede that the most 'obvious' points of divergence are the most important ones.
A timeline exploring an earlier progression of queer rights in various parts of the world is not inherently less sensible than the many timelines that seek to explore earlier industrial revolutions, or the continued existence of a Roman Empire in the present, or the (deeply unlikely) victory of the Nazis in the Second World War.
There are already alternate history timelines written from queer, nonwhite, feminine, disabled perspectives. But I want it to be easier to find them, and I want more
I want more timelines that interrogate the notion of 'progression' along technological lines according to set landmarks.
I want more timelines that interrogate the notion that one can omnisciently narrate and explain history.
I want more timelines that care about the individuals who lack executive control within their societies, and about the societies that are not considered foremost, trailblazing, or highly influential.
Alternate history need not be dystopian to critique the present, and need not be utopian to articulate a message that things can be better than they are.
There is such a wide potential in the genre beyond its reputation. Nor am I capable of exploring remotely the full span of what that potential is.
I'm tired of reading alternate history work that treats the transatlantic slave trade as a sad inevitability, or the compulsion to form transcontinental imperium as universal.
I suppose, in the end, I feel like even the present state of alternate history, when taken as a whole, is better than is widely reputed. But with that position taken as granted, I still feel like there is much more yet to be done.
I want to encourage new people to read and explore alternate history, and it's not just to potentially get more eyes on the best it already has to offer. It's to effect the genre's continued transformation. If no one new seeks the stage, the same actors will occupy it
Above all, I want alternate history to become part of the same creative toolkit as the rest of #speculativefiction when it comes to marginalised and minoritised communities gaining autonomy within the realm of imagination.
Not only do I think this is important, not only do I think this is owed, but I think it's entirely possible.
There is no reason that it need remain the haunt of nationalists of all types. Of people who imagine history 'better' at the explicit, knowing expense of others.