Backwards Alternate History?

[Makemakean]

Something I've for a long time been curious about is whether somebody has ever attempted to do a proper attempt at alternate history backwards? Every single timeline I've come across on this forum hitherto has either begun with a What If? asked regarding a specific historical even occurring in another way, or begun by stating a particular desired outcome, followed by a progression thereto from a chosen point in history.

However, I've never come across somebody trying to do the impossible, namely beginning by stating a scenario, and then trying to work out where the point of divergence was completely backwards. Deducing, figuring out or inventing the causes continually from the effect, in each step of the way.

Clearly this is very, very difficult, but as far as what human ingenuity has demonstrated to me so far, it shouldn't be possible. So, I'm wondering, has this ever been attempted at this forum, and if it hasn't, has anyone here ever thought about this as well?

[Lycaon pictus]

Sort of an AH.com Memento? The hard part would be writing it so nobody guesses the PoD before the ending.

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by Lycaon pictus

Sort of an AH.com Memento? The hard part would be writing it so nobody guesses the PoD before the ending.

Yes and no.

The idea is that not even the writer(s) would know it. They would have to work it out along the way. Kind of like how some writers out there write their books backwards.

[Marc Pasquin]

I think there's been a few timelines that were written with the end result in mind and then justification was looked for afterward. For example, something I've been working on off and on is a timeline with France being, in the modern era, a country that resonate among the general public with countries like Burgundy or the ottoman empire (i.e. locals might know about it but outside of historians, most people around the world would be buggered to know about it).

The problem is that without knowing exactly what caused it, you must make many assumptions that later need to be rewritten as you discover other avenues further in the past that seem more promising or that would simply negate them.

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by Marc Pasquin

The problem is that without knowing exactly what caused it, you must make many assumptions that later need to be rewritten as you discover other avenues further in the past that seem more promising or that would simply negate them.

That may very well be true, but I think that if you are strict enough with your rules, and are careful about what you write about previous events and limit the "reverse foreshadowing" ("backshadowing"? ) it shouldn't be a technical impossibility, in my mind...

After all, games with highly complex rules may very well have some charm in their rules themselves...

[Baron Bizarre]

I've thought of stuff like that (for some reason, the scenario of Japanese samurai fighting Roman legionaries in the Rocky Mountains - both at a 1917 OTL level of technology - sticks in my mind), but I'm not no-how a good enough historian to attempt trying to "backwards engineer" a scenario that implausible.

[Marc Pasquin]

Originally Posted by Makemakean

That may very well be true, but I think that if you are strict enough with your rules, and are careful about what you write about previous events and limit the "reverse foreshadowing" ("backshadowing"? ) it shouldn't be a technical impossibility, in my mind...

After all, games with highly complex rules may very well have some charm in their rules themselves...

If you're willing to suspend disbelief a bit, you can always adopt the QSS and QAA rules that the Ill Bethisad group did. Quod Scripsi Scripsi means that a given fact cannot be changed once introduced into the timeline and that further additions must work around it even if (and especialy if) it would seem at first glance to contradict its existence. Quod Assumpsi Assumpsi on the other hand goes with the assumption that anything not written yet have gone along similar to OTL inasmuch as they alowed facts that fall under QSS to exist.

If you start with something that appear at first glance to be far removed from our TL but want to stay within "hard" AH, you would probably need to have some slightly far fetched explanation for some elements. For the roman legionaires fighting samurais in the rocky example given above, you might have to have the 2 groups having come from some ren-fair type events with the POD being secondary. If they were actual people fitting with that description, the changes to that TL would be so great that you should forget about keeping it hardcore and simply follow the QSS and QAA rules I described before.

[TyranicusMaximus]

Eurofed's timelines didn't go backwards in time, but they were justifications for the Scenarios, instead of the other way around.

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by Marc Pasquin

If you're willing to suspend disbelief a bit, you can always adopt the QSS and QAA rules that the Ill Bethisad group did. Quod Scripsi Scripsi means that a given fact cannot be changed once introduced into the timeline and that further additions must work around it even if (and especialy if) it would seem at first glance to contradict its existence. Quod Assumpsi Assumpsi on the other hand goes with the assumption that anything not written yet have gone along similar to OTL inasmuch as they alowed facts that fall under QSS to exist.

If you start with something that appear at first glance to be far removed from our TL but want to stay within "hard" AH, you would probably need to have some slightly far fetched explanation for some elements. For the roman legionaires fighting samurais in the rocky example given above, you might have to have the 2 groups having come from some ren-fair type events with the POD being secondary. If they were actual people fitting with that description, the changes to that TL would be so great that you should forget about keeping it hardcore and simply follow the QSS and QAA rules I described before.

Now this I like.

A lot.

All I need to do now, in other words, is to cook up a map and begin working my way backwards, right?

Where can I find a blank version of that great world map I see everyone using around here! I'm gonna give this one a try!

Seriously!

EDIT: Actually, wait.. I'm gonna do this without a map. It's actually easier then!

[Desmond Hume]

I've been forming plans to do a kind of backwards timeline lately, if I ever find time for it. I was trying to think of ways to bring my long-dormat timeline Under the Eagle Flag to a conclusion, and I came up with the idea of telling the story through a series of short biographies of political figures. Then I thought, why not start with the most recent character (circa 2000) and work backwards?

So be on the lookout for that in a couple months.

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by Desmond Hume

I've been forming plans to do a kind of backwards timeline lately, if I ever find time for it. I was trying to think of ways to bring my long-dormat timeline Under the Eagle Flag to a conclusion, and I came up with the idea of telling the story through a series of short biographies of political figures. Then I thought, why not start with the most recent character (circa 2000) and work backwards?

So be on the lookout for that in a couple months.

I, for one, certainly will, as will I remember to read your timeline.

[Ganesha]

Now this is interesting, because this is essentially where my in-development timeline came from.

I wanted a world where Chicago was bigger, more powerful, more prosperous, and generally even more successful than OTL. Then I set about thinking about how that might happen.

I've now found a very good POD, and am starting work on laying out a detailed outline of the timeline, which I hope to begin posting early this fall.

Cheers,
Ganesha

[Thande]

This has kind of been done a few times in the form of map challenges: a snapshot of a different world and then you try and figure back to the POD that might have produced it.

A few TLs have been derived from this, in particular Flocculencio's "Anglo-Dutch Empire" and my own "Look to the West". In both cases though it is not a strict derivation because inevitably in the course of matters you discover bits that won't fit or work and you change them. For example, my first LTTW map sketch set in 1860 had a "Confederation of Bolivaria" in South America. While the actual LTTW indeed has a powerful state of the same type I was thinking of in that role, it does not use the name Bolivaria because I later realised that the POD would have to extend far back enough to butterfly Simon Bolivar away.

[Grey Wolf]

I more or less do this with most stories I write - there was one where I created a great 18th century world to underpin it, but it was written on a rented computer and saved on floppy disc and no longer exists.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Killer300]

I actually want to try this, however the problem is I don't have the historical knowledge to do it.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Killer300

I actually want to try this, however the problem is I don't have the historical knowledge to do it.

I didn't when I started; I acquired the knowledge on the journey as I did it.

[Killer300]

Ah, interesting.

Well, hopefully I can gain the knowledge to get a 2nd American Civil War actually be plausible, however I get the feeling PODs are going to be difficult, to say the least.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by Killer300

Ah, interesting.

Well, hopefully I can gain the knowledge to get a 2nd American Civil War actually be plausible, however I get the feeling PODs are going to be difficult, to say the least.

Ah, but that can be the beauty of this approach - you don't start at the end then go straight back to the beginning, you can find your way back to where your beginning makes logical sense by jumping back through the decades, significant event at a time.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by Grey Wolf

Ah, but that can be the beauty of this approach - you don't start at the end then go straight back to the beginning, you can find your way back to where your beginning makes logical sense by jumping back through the decades, significant event at a time.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Quite. You set up the 2nd American Civil War such as what issue it is that is being fought over, which the different factions are, where they are seated, so forth and so on. Then you work out how the war broke out, the triggering event as to speak. You decide upon Gavrillo Princip, Franz Ferdinand and Sarajevo before you work out how the Austro-Hungarian Empire looked like and its backstory in the Balkans. Then you work out that... and so forth and so on. And try to make things look less and less divergent from our time. Until you finally reach, say, Samuel Tilden winning South Carolina and the election of 1876.

[Shawn Endresen]

Isn't this the entire point/premise of DBWIs? Which are, after all, not everyone's cup of tea.