User talk:Nhprman

From Alternative History

[edit] Hi

Hi fellow alternative historian. I see you have some nice guidelines for you and other people to follow. One thing I want to make a comment about is that a POD doesn't neccesarily have to change everything and in fact there could be multiple PODs in a story. For example, it is valid to have a POD, then some alternate history, then later the alternative timeline merges with the OTL, only to depart in another POD again. Tell me what you think about this concept. Greekmythfan 17:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with your statement here. PODs certainly don't have to be earth-shattering. In fact, it would be interesting to read a book or a TL about ONE SMALL CHANGE that only makes one, interesting ripple in the new TL. The problem is that online, and in most books, that rarely is the way it works, because it's simply not "dramatic" enough and such a small change would likely seem too subtle. Nhprman 05:01, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, I'll have to say that many small changes can have HUGE consequenses. I'm not naming names here, but one TL here shows a list of presidents in this ATL that have some VERY familiar names. In fact, many people in politics right now are still in politics. That's not strange, except the POD was before the American Revolution in OTL. This is a very entertaining TL, don't get me wrong, but it's simply not plausible that many of these people would EVEN BE BORN, given the fact that their ancestors may or may not have come to the "america" that resulted from this new TL, or may have never been in the same state (say, Arizona) 200 or so years later to conceive this person and name him exactly the same. Further, would they have had EXACTLY the same names, or would they have been even *interested* in politics in the new TL's circumstances? Likely not. But I'll concede that if the TL was meant to simply entertain, as writers like Turtledove apparently often do, then I was entertained. Nhprman 03:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC) (fixed sig. Sorry, forgot to sign in)