TLs you exist in

[Bishop]

There are many TLs I know that I wouldn't exist in and I have a hard time finding one in the before 1900 section where I would exist. We like to think that if we meet our counterpart from another TL, they would probably be from a vastly different world and TL, but honestly, the differences can't be too large because the circumstances for you to exist require too many similarities between the two TLs. Of course, that doesn't mean finding a very different TL compared to OTL where you exist in is impossible even if it is before 1900.

I remember reading a story in CTT.net about a woman from a Mongol dominated world meeting her counterpart in OTL, honestly, from a world that different, the chances of her still existing and being conceived in such vastly different worlds is ASB.

Anyway, name the TL that has the farthest back POD and where you still know for certain that you exist.

[Mr. Evangelical]

I should exist in most, unless the State of Georgia gets destroyed, or Britain is never a colonial empire.

[Alberto Knox]

Strangely, I seem to exist in a TL where the Cuban Missile Crisis went hot even though it was almost 30 years before I was born. Thankfully my parents were both in Australia at the time and they managed to survive the nuclear holocaust, meet, get married and have a child who seems to be identical to me physically. Very different personality though, apparently I'm into heroin :eek:.

[Tocomocho]

I've asked myself about this quite some times and I've reached the conclusion that, as most written TLs with PODs after 1850 doesn't affect Spain in a real way, I would exist in most of them. Because since my great-great paternal grandfather moved to a tiny village in the 1870s all my ancestors have lived there, and not bad despite being just farmers or sons of farmers. In fact, both my grandparents and my parents knew each other since they were kids and despite having traveled and moved to other places for decades they always ended on the same first place and married what had been a little play pal in their infancy. :)

So, in short words, I think my survival would have been more vulnerable to little family what ifs instead of international ones. For example, have my father accepted that job in Germany in the 1970s, I would have been butterflied out and there would have been a sauerkraut eater version of myself instead. :D

[Codae]

I happen to be a strong believer in the butterfly effect, so any POD before my conception would, in my opinion, butterfly me away.

And I've never seen such a TL.

[Ynnead]

any TL that takes place after early 1991

[Mr. Evangelical]

As long as my dad is never killed in The Persian Gulf shit, I'll be alive.

[Finn]

My conception is as far back as the POD can go. The process of which sperm hits the egg is so random that the any butterflies before my conception would render me nonexistant.

[rcduggan]

Any timeline that happens before my conception is one I do not exist in, so 99.6% of history results in a timeline where I do not exist.

[Bishop]

I happen to be a strong believer in the butterfly effect, so any POD before my conception would, in my opinion, butterfly me away.

And I've never seen such a TL.

My conception is as far back as the POD can go. The process of which sperm hits the egg is so random that the any butterflies before my conception would render me nonexistant.

Any timeline that happens before my conception is one I do not exist in, so 99.6% of history results in a timeline where I do not exist.

Alright, I've got to agree with that. I guess all that nonsense I've heard about meeting our counterparts from a vastly different TL is complete nonsense. If we were to meet our counterparts from another TL, they would be very similar to ourselves from a very similar TL. Too bad to all these thoughts of a vastly different version of ourselves.

[Tyr]

TLs with a POD about 1 year ago.
Before that and I was different, I could well have developed a different way.

For a person who is genetically me though not me; Well obviously the majority of those with PODs 9 months before I was born. Even there though I may well look very different, genetics only count for so much and even whilst my mam is pregnant I can develop differently let alone once I'm out in the world.

[Grey Wolf]

Well, I basically look at the question on the basis of whether my parents would ever meet (which was not exactly something on the cards in OTL, it took a Spanish language evening class in Luton IIRC, where neither of them came from, but had ended up after a while, plus the fact they had the same surname so people keopt asking them about each other...)

If its long enough before that, then I'd need to wonder if both sets of grand-parents (1) live, (2) meet, (3) marry, (4) have children etc

I suspect that random randomness allows me to exist where I will

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Emperor Qianlong]

Hmmm... without WWII, my parents would almost certainly never have been born, and if they were, they'd likely never have met. There's also the chance both my grandfathers could have been killed in WWII. This means, broadly, any POD prior 1945 almost certainly butterflies away me. For those after 1945, there's still a small chance that for some reason that my parents never met, or never married... :(

I'd say, the farthest back POD where I certainly exist would be any POD after the year 1979.

[The Militant One]

Hmmm... without WWII, my parents would almost certainly never have been born, and if they were, they'd likely never have met. There's also the chance both my grandfathers could have been killed in WWII. This means, broadly, any POD prior 1945 almost certainly butterflies away me. For those after 1945, there's still a small chance that for some reason that my parents never met, or never married... :(

I'd say, the farthest back POD where I certainly exist would be any POD after the year 1979.

Any TL where the Nazis the United States or a TL where the Russians take over at any time before 1960. This is because my grandfather was USAF and met my grandmother out where he was stationed.

Um, If Vietnam lingered until 1978, my father might have been drafted, skewing a course of events.

Basically ANY TL before 1986.

[Thande]

If you take a fundamentalist approach to the butterfly effect, anything after 1984.

So I suppose I'm there in all dystopic-alternative-end-of-Cold-War scenarios. Whoop-de-do. :rolleyes:

[Fardell]

I am there if there is a 19th or 20th Century POD, and the POD doesn't have a major effect on Australia. (Though I suppose that even a civil war over the Dismissal wouldn't butterfly me out, if there is minimal effects in the Central West region of New South Wales), that is without chaos theory, which I am not sure would hold. (Theoretically I am in a lot of TL's including the Cuban Missile War TL.)

[Goldstein]

I've asked myself about this quite some times and I've reached the conclusion that, as most written TLs with PODs after 1850 doesn't affect Spain in a real way, I would exist in most of them. Because since my great-great paternal grandfather moved to a tiny village in the 1870s all my ancestors have lived there, and not bad despite being just farmers or sons of farmers. In fact, both my grandparents and my parents knew each other since they were kids and despite having traveled and moved to other places for decades they always ended on the same first place and married what had been a little play pal in their infancy. :)

So, in short words, I think my survival would have been more vulnerable to little family what ifs instead of international ones. For example, have my father accepted that job in Germany in the 1970s, I would have been butterflied out and there would have been a sauerkraut eater version of myself instead. :D

More or less the same could be applied to my parents, but not me. While most of my ancestors, including my grandparents, knew each other since they were kids, my parents were from different cities and they knew each other in a theatre play made by university students... and it was a satire about the oil crisis. So the minimal change in both the national and international events would wipe me out of existence. I don't exist in almost any timeline with a POD prior to the late 60's.

[rewster]

The thing about the butterfly effect is, it doesn't necessarily have to change everything. If we also take into account that there are possibly infinite alternate timelines, then it is not illogical to expect that even in a timeline extremely different from our own, we could still exist as the same person, just due to random convergence.
For instance... I live in the US, so one would imagine any TL that has no US makes me not exist, right? Well, not necessarily. As there are infinite alternate histories, there is bound to be one where my ancestors, rather than moving to the US, moved near each other, but somewhere else. Let's say they ended up in Ireland somehow, since I have Irish on both sides of my family. Then, they meet each other in one of an infinite number of possible scenarios, and then in one of those timelines my same great great grandparents get married, and that spawns another infinite number of timelines, one of which has the same sperms meeting the same eggs as in OTL (random convergence) and my great grandparents are born, and in the same way my grandparents, parents, and me.

So really, you can't say it's ASB, because OTL is just as unlikely as a totally dissimilar TL in which a person of the same genetic material is conceived. Both scenarios are just one of infinite possibilities.

[Atom]

I probably exist in very very very few worlds, due to my highly mixed heritage. It's unlikely my grandparents would marry, let alone my parents.

[NomadicSky]

My parents only met because my dad was hit by a drunk driver. His car looked just like the car of the guy my mom was dating at the time and she only stoped because she thought it was him.

She called an ambulance and stayed with my dad till it came then rode to the hospital with him. Later he was working at WalMart with her. Somehow from that they got married.

Six years later I was conceived the night my dad quit WalMart because they'd been making him work 80 hour weeks and they hadn't see each other in so long.

Change any of that no me.

[Emperor Qianlong]

If you take a fundamentalist approach to the butterfly effect, anything after 1984.

So I suppose I'm there in all dystopic-alternative-end-of-Cold-War scenarios. Whoop-de-do. :rolleyes:

What do you mean with the 'fundamentalist' approach?

[LordInsane]

If you take a fundamentalist approach to the butterfly effect, anything after 1984.

So I suppose I'm there in all dystopic-alternative-end-of-Cold-War scenarios. Whoop-de-do. :rolleyes:
And EU/EC-related TLs, such as, for instance, WI Norway joined in 1995, or WI Denmark/Sweden voted yes to adopt the Euro in 2003.

There was that Mexican War TL...

[Nekromans]

If you take a fundamentalist approach to the butterfly effect, anything after 1984.

So I suppose I'm there in all dystopic-alternative-end-of-Cold-War scenarios. Whoop-de-do. :rolleyes:

Actually, in most you've been dead for ages, and your radioactive ashes are even now choking innocent baby lambs! :)

[Hendryk]

I should exist in most, unless the State of Georgia gets destroyed, or Britain is never a colonial empire.
Not familiar with the concept of butterflies, are you?

I'll play it safe and consider that any TL in which European history is noticeably different from OTL's by the late 1960s won't have me around. My parents started dating while in Africa, where my father had gone as an alternative to military service and my mother had gone thanks to post-1968 humanitarian idealism. A generation further back, my maternal grandfather married my grandmother upon returning from a POW camp after WW2.

[mattep74]

My parents only met because my dad was hit by a drunk driver. His car looked just like the car of the guy my mom was dating at the time and she only stoped because she thought it was him.

She called an ambulance and stayed with my dad till it came then rode to the hospital with him. Later he was working at WalMart with her. Somehow from that they got married.

Six years later I was conceived the night my dad quit WalMart because they'd been making him work 80 hour weeks and they hadn't see each other in so long.

Change any of that no me.


Almost Back to the future version of events for you:)

[NomadicSky]

Almost Back to the future version of events for you:)

Somewhat I guess.

It wasn't florence nightingale syndrome. My dad was back to healthy when my parents met again. They became really good friends and later dated then they got married.

[Gandavien]

I can't exist in a timeline where Denmark isn't invaded by the Nazi's, so the farthest back POD where I can exist is 1940.