Alright good people, I have a simple question for all of you, what are some points of divergence who's affect on wider history is minimal at best, but can still be considered notable?
The reroll concept, though it certainly has a logic to it, just seems like it goes to far. The POD is generally a completely independant 'die roll' to nearly every other event. It makes very little sense to me that having charlemagne die young would affect who would become emperor of china within a lifespan, or the chief of some American tribe within even a dozen life times
Changes, imo, need time and a medium (generally human interaction) to propagate.
While there is a broad consensus on the forum that the butterfly effect must be taken into account to cover all the secondary effects, there is some controvery about the application of it. The most 'fundamentalist' approach says that absolutely anything that happens after the PoD has the potential to go differently to OTL.
The other, more moderate approach to the butterfly effect is to assume that the Butterfly Effect spreads outwards from the origin of the Divergence, reaching more far away lands only after some time, time the secondary effects need to build up and reach those lands. Even then, the moderate approach will tell you the butterfly effect only affects the “context system” of the Divergence's region. For example, if the PoD happens in medieval Peru, then it may take some decades for the butterfly effect to manifest in Mesoamerica, and even centuries for it to reach outlying regions, while European history will not be affected until 1492.
The third approach, to disregard the Butterfly Effect more or less exactly, or to have it affect or not affect the world at the author's arbitrary will, is as said pretty much discredited on the Forum, though very popular in professional literature.
Quantum events generally don't propagate up to affect macro level events as I understand it, save in a few fringe cases involving fundamental forces like gravity.It depends on your view of whether or not quantum events are deterministic (which I don’t believe they are)
The reroll concept, though it certainly has a logic to it, just seems like it goes to far. The POD is generally a completely independant 'die roll' to nearly every other event. It makes very little sense to me that having charlemagne die young would affect who would become emperor of china within a lifespan, or the chief of some American tribe within even a dozen life times
Changes, imo, need time and a medium (generally human interaction) to propagate.
In this case, the medium is causality on the quantum or atomic level. Any single difference in the initial conditions of a system will invariably multiply, quickly differentiating the two systems. Sure, by pure coincidence, you’ll get some of the same events, but even things as fundamental as weather can drastically alter human behavior. Of course, once any specific event has a different set of initial conditions, then all bets are off. To follow your example, if Charlemagne dies early and the cumulative molecular displacement results in a storm in China which causes the emperor and his concubine to not conceive the same child as OTL, then clearly the butterfly effect is being strictly observed. Even the phrase “butterfly effect” originates from an conjecture that individual agency (in this case, from a butterfly) can impact macro-level physical phenomena on a substantial level. Of course, it’s all fiction, so it doesn’t matter all that much and it’s down to personal preference when you’re writing TLs. I personally prefer a strict observance of the butterfly effect because I see it as a less deterministic, and therefore more interesting, way to conceive of history. But that’s just a personal choice. It depends on your view of whether or not quantum events are deterministic (which I don’t believe they are)
I agree entirely. Part of the fun for me of going by the second theory is to extrapolate what may happen from a POD in the immediate future and figure out what changes right away, what changes a generation later, the generation after, and so on and so forth. Now that we live in a smaller world, I'm sure the butterflies may fly faster and farther for any recent PODs, but in the old days, news travelled very slowly, so it could take months to even years for say the Ming Emperor to hear about a TTL, POD death of the Pope, a person who likely has a very minimal effect on the affairs of Ming China beyond those in the know over there knowing of the Pope as the guy in charge of that distant land called Europe.Quantum events generally don't propagate up to affect macro level events as I understand it, save in a few fringe cases involving fundamental forces like gravity.
I very much subscribe to the second theory betelgeuse quoted, it makes more sense and it's a lot less work for the writer that follows it