November 18, 2015, 6:30 am
Posted by: Tim

During Cam’s shift, we challenged the community to develop their concept for an alternative history story. Here’s the winning entry, by TacitusVigil:

We imagined history as a fixed path; “what was” is what was always meant to be. How could it be otherwise? Historians used counterfactuals to examine history to an extent (at least before The Device), but such musings absent of evidence were frowned upon by academics. Alternate history novels used to dive into the most overused questions…what if the Nazis won World War II? What if the South won the American Civil War? What if the White House wasn’t destroyed during the 9/11 attacks? After the Quantum Entanglement Device (the Q.E.D., or “The Device” as it’s usually referred) was invented ten years ago, all those “What ifs” were confirmed for us. At first it was deeply profound, gazing into The Device to see the road less traveled. Of course, The Device isn’t a time machine, so we’re limited to one-way real-time images into those worlds. Historians were thrilled to study worlds that look so similar, yet are so different…

…then the politicians weaponized the Device, pointing to select dystopic timelines where their opponents are in power (that infinite realities exist meant nothing to them). And when people started seeing what it would be like if they never had kids, or they married that other person, etc, well…we look back fondly when mere reality TV could “ruin” our lives. Now we ask “why do anything if your choices mean nothing”? Our world is now obsessed with “What if” and nobody cares about what is. The old saying is true…ignorance is bliss.

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