On the Suspension of Disbelief--a question

I have a simple question for Alternate History fans:

What people do you feel that it is OK to replace with a fictional counterpart. For example, Lord Nelson can’t be replaced at Trafalgar without explanation, but the captain of an obscure frigate could be replaced with a fictional character to fill the author’s needs. (It might not even be practical to find out who he was, let alone what he was like.)

So—who can be freely replaced prior to the POD without further elaboration? An obscure member of Parliament? A little known general? Where do we draw the line? (After the POD, of course, major characters can be added or subtracted at need…but major ones need justification.

I will create a junior admiral if I need one, or the owner of a business that’s not itself responsible for major changes. (Brill Trolley, Ford, Bethlehem Steel, for example, won’t be changed without explanation, but a small shipping line will be.)

I will not add any warship larger than a numbered patrol boat without explanation, but then, warships are important to me. Nor will I add a new model of tank or fighter plane unless accounted for in the POD. Or far enough after that the butterfly effect will come into play.

I personally prefer not to use people born much after the POD—butterfly effect, again.

The reason for this question is to aid all writers in seeing what jars on people, and what doesn’t.
 

MrP

Banned
Well, if it's different from OTL, then it is the PoD, surely? This applies even if it has no actual effect on the broad sweep of things in the TL.

In some cases one might explain that one doesn't know who fulfilled role x IOTL and one is using chap y as a placeholder until one does know.
 
I typically try to keep as close to reality as possible when dealing with events before and immediately following the POD. Historical momentum and all that. But a few months or years down the line, I've got no problems creating new characters or having established historical figures act in strange -- to us, at least -- ways. After all, who's to say that there wasn't a Alex Parsegian in the U.S. Navy at the time who couldn't fulfill a particular role?

After a certain point, it becomes just like writing a fiction story.
 
I know it breaks with tradition, but given the extreme butterflies that I use I'm forced to occasionally invent characters born before the POD. They're never older than 18, however. I keep them for later use.
 
I suspect at some poitn you almost have to invent someone. A nuke hits Moscow in 1945? Well who the hell is that politican whose claim to fame is being a Moscow survivor? Nazi victory story, who becomes the next ruler in 1999?
 
My guess would be this guy.

Actually, with German victory stories, I often try to give it to moderate German politicians, on the grounds that there are more qualifications to becoming Nazi leader than simply being an extreme racist. Charisma, organisational skills and ambition all play a part.

I try to keep butterflies within reason; after all, a 1775 POD doesn't mean George Washington will simply stay in Mount Vernon and plant potatoes all war. I can have historical figures pop up even decades after the POD, on the grounds that the sort of qualities you need to become historical are rare and unusual.
 
The beauty of PODs in wars is that you can butterfly in someone who would have been in the casualty lists without the POD. Both the Germans and British lament the loss of their best and brightest young men in WW1, there is a potential goldmine of talent waiting to be butterflyed into greatness later on.
 

HueyLong

Banned
One strategy is to use relatives and analogues- assume that some family will have similiar offspring, and similiar upbringing. I plan on the Roosevelts popping up later, for example.
 
Answering the question, as asked, I don't actually MIND at all :)

If the character you've replaced with someone is someone no one really knows anyway, half the readers won't KNOW its a different guy, and those who do, well for them your choice was either to get to know a real but obscure chap inside out or to invent a person whose character you could control. Since I reckon it would be extremely difficult to, for example, research in detail whoever was Captain of the Bellerophon at Jutland, then making them up and having them have a character you can control makes far more sense to me.

After all, why should I care if you've deleted from history someone I'd never heard of anyway ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I think the question is, what are you doing with him? Is he central, or not? Unless I'd done extensive research, I wouldn't use a real historical figure as a central figure in a serious piece of fiction. If you want to do a fairly detailed TL where he's moved (say, TR gets his 3d term), & you can say what sort of decisions he'd make, no prob. Or, put him someplace else & use fiction around him, like, say, having a more tech-developed world where Lorne Greene is a TV newscaster. (I did that, only to have somebody complain he should be on radio...:confused:) I wouldn't have told the story with LG as my central character, but if he walks through the shot (so to speak), or is a minor player (where I can reliably use historical info on his ideas/actions), no prob. (Personally, I have issues about using accurate descriptions & voices, too, which can be d*mn hard to find out about...)
 
I think the rule of tumb is that you should get whatever the reader can check right and play with the uncheckable. For example "Germany invaded Poland sept 1, 1939. A stranger arrive at the Berlin railway station the same day" to steal a example from Frederik Forsythe.

However, there is a possibility that the reader didn't know that and a even ASBier possiblity a reader know who arrived at the Berlin railway station so another advise is know your reader.
 
I think the rule of tumb is that you should get whatever the reader can check right and play with the uncheckable. For example "Germany invaded Poland sept 1, 1939. A stranger arrive at the Berlin railway station the same day" to steal a example from Frederik Forsythe.

However, there is a possibility that the reader didn't know that and a even ASBier possiblity a reader know who arrived at the Berlin railway station so another advise is know your reader.

I'd agree with that, although the second paragraph leads to some problems on this site when, eg, you're writing about the US Civil War...

You: "...Late in the day, however, the 34th Massachusetts under Plinton were able to successfully strike the Confederates on the extreme west flank; with the situation suddenly turned against him, Lee began a fighting retreat towards the James..."

67th Tigers: "Arrrgh! The 34th was only ever led by Col George Wells and served the entire war in the Shenandoah anyways! Have you done no research at all!?"
 

67th Tigers

Banned
67th Tigers: "Arrrgh! The 34th was only ever led by Col George Wells and served the entire war in the Shenandoah anyways! Have you done no research at all!?"

They spent the last 6 months of the war in the Army of the James, but then the Union was so short of men it pulled in the entire disposable force into that siege. :-D
 
Suppose though that in your prospective alternative TL, you want to move a 'commander' from position 'A' to position 'B' because one - you think he would do better, or two he made a mess OTL. The person you move into position 'A' who is not going to make to same 'mess' in this ATL - do you need to find a real person who plausibly could be there, or can you 'get away' with having a fictional person of your own invention??

Opinions & comments welcome.
 
I think the question is, what are you doing with him? Is he central, or not? Unless I'd done extensive research, I wouldn't use a real historical figure as a central figure in a serious piece of fiction. If you want to do a fairly detailed TL where he's moved (say, TR gets his 3d term), & you can say what sort of decisions he'd make, no prob. Or, put him someplace else & use fiction around him, like, say, having a more tech-developed world where Lorne Greene is a TV newscaster. (I did that, only to have somebody complain he should be on radio...:confused:) I wouldn't have told the story with LG as my central character, but if he walks through the shot (so to speak), or is a minor player (where I can reliably use historical info on his ideas/actions), no prob. (Personally, I have issues about using accurate descriptions & voices, too, which can be d*mn hard to find out about...)
I'm genuinely curious- what made you bring this two year old thread back? Are you slowly working through the archives of this entire forum or something?
 
I'm genuinely curious- what made you bring this two year old thread back? Are you slowly working through the archives of this entire forum or something?
Actually, I am. And I'm finding some of the necromancy:p is sparking new discussion, so it's not purely useless, despite what some people (not you) seem to think. Not everybody's been here so long...
 
TBH, the only TL's that I've done both centre around completely fictional characters. Then again, the time-lines I have done aren't really TL's in and of themselves; they're just what I'd call the "historical backdrop" for an actual story that I'm writing.
The only one that I've fleshed out in its entirety is the 1967+ Timeline, and of course that one centres around fully fictional people; it traces an alternate history from 1960's to the 6270's, and the main human figures in it are descendants of a fictional character I made up for the TL. The CGU TL is a continuation of that (and I need to get back on it).

My recent time-line, the Glory of the Empire, centres on a fictional guy, and of course his descendants are fictional; but everyone else so far are historical figures who get involved at some point or another, and events get fiddled with. Again, it's more of the historical backdrop, and continuation, of a story I've written.

But, those are very special circumstances. Those are events where I've written a story first, and made a timeline later to fill in the gaps. If you're doing a straight-out TL, like what I do in the Map Threads, then totally fictional characters are best avoided unless necessary or within reason (butterflies, et al).
 
I think that you shouldn't invent fictional characters whose birth takes place before the POD. Although I suppose that you could always do something like what Riain said. For people born shortly after the POD, I think it's best to change the first name and maybe a few personality traits, but basically keep the same character. Once you get too far past the POD however, all bets are off. You have the freedom to do essentially whatever you want.
 
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