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"Their gravely vacant and bewhiskered mixed, melted, swam together in the sea-depth of a past, intangible, immeasurable, and unknowable…And they were lost. For who was Garfield, martyred man, and who had seen him in the streets of life? Who could believe that his footfalls ever sounded on a lonely pavement? Who has heard the casual and familiar tones of Chester Arthur? And where was Harrison? Where was Hayes? Which had the whiskers, which the burnsides; which was which?" – Thomas Wolfe.

"This miserable mode the dreary souls of those sustain, who lived without blame, and without praise" – Dante.

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Gilded Dreams

An Alternate History of the United States of America.

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There are four kinds of people.

There are those who are completely forgotten by history. Gone from our human memory, having never truly affected history except as a group, either in the streets in the ballot box.

The second type are those who have a clear, unchangeable image for all of those who aren't on the fringe. Gandhi was good. That is almost indisputable unless you are a wackjob. Likewise Hitler was evil, unless you are a neo-nazi (If your are, leave) that is indisputable.

Then there are the people who's reputation is fought over. Reagan, LBJ, Scott. All of these people have disputes around their legacy, sometimes they swing one way, sometimes another view is precedent.

The fourth group is tricky. They are the people who are remembered by history but have no reputation, they are neither good nor bad but are instead stuck in a historical limbo. They have Wiki pages that say they were senator from this state and a member of this party, but says little else. We put them on our lists but we know little about them. They are a blank slate, so it seems. Yet these were men, living breathing men who had ideals and feuds and power. They certainly were not nobodies in their own time.

This Timeline is the story of what happens when one of these people makes a different choice.
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