The episode above felt a little as though I was too-conveniently dispensing with nearby plot points that are influential but still peripheral to the main story. As this is my first timeline, I'm learning as I go, and one thing I'm learning is how much attention to give and not give to events that involve Courland and Semigallia less.
Any feedback is welcome on whether this approach amounts to too much telling and not enough showing. In my mind's eye, I'm trading away the chance to invest in more storytelling on events in the margins in order to have the main story take a greater focus - with more episodes, more narrative and character-centric stories, and more word count dedicated there.
Butterflies land in all sorts of places, and have already. But butterflies further from Courland may be kinda-sorta summarized in episodes like the above. As I said, though: happy to have feedback. As readers and writers of this site, you've seen such writer's dilemmas before. I'm recognizing them for the first time as I reach each one.
That said, I might as well include my personal theory of alternate history here, because it somewhat guides my decision-making on divergences and butterflies. Call it "multiversal fatalism" if you like: an alternate history will generally regress or realign towards OTL history, should forces preventing such realignment be lacking. The butterflies that escape the farthest are the likeliest to become irrelevant. A divergence needs more pushing to keep it divergent.
It's worth adding a summary of divergences at this point:
OTL:
Poland and Lithuania split only in the next war, and Lithuania aligned with Sweden - briefly - before returning to the res publica with Poland once more. The liberum veto became more and more relevant in Polish/Lithuanian sejms, paving the way for partitions down the road. The new Grand Duke of Lithuania was indeed Bohdan Khmelnytsky's first choice. In Poland, meanwhile, Wladyslaw lived a little longer but died the same way. The key thing is he outlived his son OTL, causing two of his brothers to become the main candidates for his succession (our TTL Grand Duke of Lithuania dropped out when his father died).
The Cossack hetmanate gained less territory, and allied with Russia to take the lands of today's Eastern Ukraine into Russia, and later on.
Russia retook Smolensk in the same wars that saw Courland and Semigallia rolled by Sweden. Their advancement to the Düna river happened later still.
The Crimean Tatars were pretty much the same.
Courland and Semigallia didn't gain Dünaburg and Kreutzburg. (Don't worry, this timeline isn't going to see Jakob Kettler marching victory parades through the streets of Moscow any time soon.)
Mostly, I'm playing with the timing of a handful of deaths for interestingness: placing the above in 1644 has Wladyslaw's son survive him (this son would die age 7 OTL). Sigismund Rákóckzi's father's death saw him withdraw his candidacy OTL, but TTL sees him become Grand Duke before his father's death. Tsar Michael OTL dies in 1645. All these OTL deaths can still have interesting consequences when the occur TTL, especially in Poland.
Any feedback is welcome on whether this approach amounts to too much telling and not enough showing. In my mind's eye, I'm trading away the chance to invest in more storytelling on events in the margins in order to have the main story take a greater focus - with more episodes, more narrative and character-centric stories, and more word count dedicated there.
Butterflies land in all sorts of places, and have already. But butterflies further from Courland may be kinda-sorta summarized in episodes like the above. As I said, though: happy to have feedback. As readers and writers of this site, you've seen such writer's dilemmas before. I'm recognizing them for the first time as I reach each one.
That said, I might as well include my personal theory of alternate history here, because it somewhat guides my decision-making on divergences and butterflies. Call it "multiversal fatalism" if you like: an alternate history will generally regress or realign towards OTL history, should forces preventing such realignment be lacking. The butterflies that escape the farthest are the likeliest to become irrelevant. A divergence needs more pushing to keep it divergent.
It's worth adding a summary of divergences at this point:
OTL:
Poland and Lithuania split only in the next war, and Lithuania aligned with Sweden - briefly - before returning to the res publica with Poland once more. The liberum veto became more and more relevant in Polish/Lithuanian sejms, paving the way for partitions down the road. The new Grand Duke of Lithuania was indeed Bohdan Khmelnytsky's first choice. In Poland, meanwhile, Wladyslaw lived a little longer but died the same way. The key thing is he outlived his son OTL, causing two of his brothers to become the main candidates for his succession (our TTL Grand Duke of Lithuania dropped out when his father died).
The Cossack hetmanate gained less territory, and allied with Russia to take the lands of today's Eastern Ukraine into Russia, and later on.
Russia retook Smolensk in the same wars that saw Courland and Semigallia rolled by Sweden. Their advancement to the Düna river happened later still.
The Crimean Tatars were pretty much the same.
Courland and Semigallia didn't gain Dünaburg and Kreutzburg. (Don't worry, this timeline isn't going to see Jakob Kettler marching victory parades through the streets of Moscow any time soon.)
Mostly, I'm playing with the timing of a handful of deaths for interestingness: placing the above in 1644 has Wladyslaw's son survive him (this son would die age 7 OTL). Sigismund Rákóckzi's father's death saw him withdraw his candidacy OTL, but TTL sees him become Grand Duke before his father's death. Tsar Michael OTL dies in 1645. All these OTL deaths can still have interesting consequences when the occur TTL, especially in Poland.