Tuesday, July 5, 2011

DVR Time Travel



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?

7 comments:

  1. OMG...all fascinating questions! I want to go on your time travel trip! May I hold your luggage?

    I read a book once that speculated that the library of Alexandria held Thoth's tomes, the keys to ancient alchemy. I would love to dig through some of that papyrus.

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  2. Out of everything you mentioned the one about the Great Library piques my interest the most. Not because the others aren't interesting, but because I've always wondered that myself. It's a huge "what if" and my imagination just takes off.

    A historical event I'd change? What would've happened if the two princes hadn't died during Richard III's reign? It might not be mind-boggling, but it makes me wonder if the Tudor dynasty would've come into being at all.

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  3. I would totally save the library at Alexandria, too. Dammit.

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  4. I'm happy to lead a Time Travel Tour. Laura and Jeffe, I'll drop you two at Alexandria, say, 20 years ahead of the first time it burned? That way you can scheme up a way to save it while Danica and I rush off to thwart the probable assassinations of Edward and Richard.

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  5. Can I go back and be a guitarist for Janis Joplin? I could be all innovative and do cool stuff before Randy Rhodes or Eddie Van Halen were even a gleam in their daddies' eyes....

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  6. I hate to say this, but I'm kinda glad that you - KAK - don't have a time machine. Because you would definitely meddle. And then I wouldn't be sitting here with my Malbec and my purring cat, thinking about writing. Although, I guess if I could come along for the ride I wouldn't care. Would you have beverages in your time machine?

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  7. Oooo, Linda, nice one.

    Kerry, psht, it's my time machine, of course there will be beverages and of the leaded sort too!

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