DVR Time Travel

By KAK 

I’ve long been entertained by the notion that I exist in the wrong time, but I have no idea which time would be the right time. It’s not that I lack a fierce love of indoor plumbing or central heat/air. It’s not that I wish to have my inalienable rights, my education, or my independence ripped from me. Truly, I do appreciate modern sanitation and progressive equality. I love having a place in society as a person and not property.  Yes, yes, admittedly, still being alive at my age does have certain binnies. 

But…

What If?

What if I could travel through time? What if I could find that right time? What if all I found was almost right? Paradoxes and hubris aside, I would totally monkey with history.  

~muuwahaha~

What if pivotal moments in history hadn’t happened the way they had?  What if certain empires never existed? This is the reason I love alternate history novels. Talk about getting lost in a daydream. If I was remotely a fan of doing actual research and verifying facts, that would be my sweet-spot genre.  A rough knowledge of the past, gobs of erroneously linked misinformation, and a shoddy memory make highly entertaining fodder for fantasy novels -- wherein the names have been changed to disguise my ignorance.  Sure, I like historical fiction. Nigel Tranter is one of my favorite authors.  I like to take what I’ve learned from well written and well researched historical fiction and get lost in alternative history novels. I can spend days being led down paths of other people’s What Ifs. Those days translate into weeks of contemplating my own What Ifs.

What if:

• Moses hadn’t gone back to Egypt? Or instead of taking “his people” and leaving, he’d become Pharaoh?
• Themistocles hadn’t insisted on a strong Athenian navy? Would Darius have won the Battle of Marathon?
• The Vikings had stayed the first time they’d landed in North America?
• Alexandria hadn’t burned? Would the tomes in the Great Library reveal a very different history than the one we’ve pieced together?
• Cleopatra had spanked Octavian? Could the Roman Republic have recovered?
• The Huns had succeeded in taking over the Sassanid Empire?
• Suetonius hadn’t defeated Boudicca? Would the British Monarchy be a Matriarchy? How would the rules of inheritance change? Would a patriarchal religion ever have taken root?
• What if Constantine had embraced Buddhism over Christianity?
• Clovis hadn’t united the Franks?
• Napoleon had taken St. Petersburg? Would there have been a Bolshevik Revolution?
• What if the Industrial Revolution had been defeated by a Naturalists Revolution?

I could go on and on and on…

When I figure out the whole time-travel thing, I’ll naturally want it like a DVR. There’ll undoubtedly be a need for fast-forwarding through the mundane and the blah, blah, blah. Oh yes, rewind and pause too for the parts worth reliving. 

~brow waggle~

If you could pick a historical event to change, which one would it be and how would it change?