What makes an alternate world?

[dalekboy]

Thanks to a discussion in one of my previous posts, I find myself wondering - What large or small obvious things can there be to clue people into the fact they are in an alternate universe?

The most common is the good old airship in the modern day world. I'd like to hear about some others. So see this as a writing or thinking exercise, or just a bit of fun.

The setting is 2006. You land in a version of the world where things are just a little different. The cities/people are more or less the same but there are other changes. Let's not go for airships (unless it compliments you ideas), that's the classic, and no 'nazi's won the war', either. We're just after changes that make you do a double-take as you realise this isn't your Earth.

king_espresso came up with two great ones - Elvis Concert Tour posters and the Twin Towers intact. No need to try and match other people's ideas, just write what you want.

Here's one to start you off. The microchip revolution never happened. No mobile phones or computer shops. Lots of phone booths and the like. Televisions are still big as are cameras. VCR's are huge beasts.

So, what it's like in your parallel universe?

Comments

[callistra.livejournal.com]

people dressing in one solid colour as every day wear.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Does everyone wear different solid colours, or is it uniform? i.e. everyone wears blue on monday.

This is cool.

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

The Communist Propoganda everywhere.

(My alternative world has an expansionist Leon Trotsky having Stalin arrested and shot within hours of Lenin's death, the reds oust the nazis in Germany and the Red Axis successfully take over the world)

[lonewolf23.livejournal.com]

In mine, Rob Roy MacGregor was sent to the Americas after his imprisonment by the English, instead of being pardoned, where he organised a rebellion much earlier than the War of Independance. Thus was formed New Scotland, and from there a reign of highland terror swept the planet, as the Great Scottish Empire conquered most of the world. Australia was colonised by the Scots. Men wear kilts. Teenagers wear them down around their knees. And have their sporrans on backwards. The most popular instrument in rock music are the electric bagpipes. Scottish brogue is the world language. MacDonalds serves haggis.

Hmmm... might have to hold onto this one. These are not the droids you're looking for. Move along.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea of modern Aussie men all in kilts. That's just fabulous! If I could wear a kilt and not get based up by yobbos, I'd be there in a second.

I am jealous of this one. I want to do a story featuring Aussie drovers all wearing kilts. Of course, they're all nicknamed Macca.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

So, what it's like in your parallel universe?

Heh. It's just *warmer* and *nicer*. My fantasies lack grit. :)

[gutter-monkey.livejournal.com]

Gay marriage. A female US president.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Both good. I think you and I need to find the universe where being hairy and loud = male model/sex god.

Actually, I'm already there, I just don't like you missing out.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

"The microchip revolution never happened. No mobile phones or computer shops. Lots of phone booths and the like. Televisions are still big as are cameras. VCR's are huge beasts.

So, what it's like in your parallel universe?"

I'm single.

I don't think I like this parallel universe...

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I've already written a stack of parallel world stories, including one where Alan Turing went to the US instead of committing suicide, one where tougher US gun laws meant that JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald and J.R. Tippitt were still alive in 1980, and one in which the Twin Towers still existed at the end of 2001. Unfortunately, that one was rejected by editors as too political...

http://stephen-dedman.livejournal.com/1674.html

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

In mine, prisons are full of captured vampires.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Cool. I assume the windows have blackout curtains :)

[harveystoat.livejournal.com]

Charles Bronson is elected Mayor of Chicago.
During the Meiji era, after firearms oust the principle weapon of the samurai in terms of popularity, the redoubtable Nintendo clan create the world's first bona fide machine gun.
Adolf Hitler changes his name to "Neil Diamond". As a result, the invasion of Poland is ignored for about a month.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

That last one had me in fits.

Fitz was most upset about this.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

No refridgeration. I'm not sure that that counts as a "little" different, as it would make for huge differences in diet.

I suspect fruit and vegies wouldn't be so bad; they'd just be more seasonal and more local. But meat and fish would all have to be salted, dried or pickled to be transported or stored any great distances or times.

No microwave ovens would be subtler :)

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Like both of these. No refrigeration has massive side effects, including not being able to keep blood to use in transfusions and such.

[king-espresso.livejournal.com]

How about this one: La Perouse almost beat Cook to Australia. Rock up in Sydney, or St Denys and everyone's spruiking French, dressing much better and eating better quality food.

[kaths.livejournal.com]

In my parallel world, violins are played the other way around, so the left hand bows and the right hand does the fingering (a very small number of people do that now in the folk genre). That'd be really weird to get used to.

Was bad enough tonight when I was playing in a different orchestra and on the opposite side of it to where I usually sit.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Well, take that a step further and the world is majority left-handed... very subtle but strange. Or we just all read right to left here.

[king-espresso.livejournal.com]

Or Israel being set up in the Northern part of WA as was suggested in the 40s... Might be some trouble there with Moslem Indonesia...

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Ohh, when was this floated?

[livelurker.livejournal.com]

In my alternate universe, the Twin Towers aren't standing. I figure I crossed over in that week of 2001. I wish I could get back.

In the alternate alternate universe, we didn't forget how to build moon rockets and the technology was used as the basis for incremental ongoing expansion into the universe. And the Mac/PC marketshare is reversed :)

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Great. I so wish we had a permanent base on the moon. It'd be cool to look up and know there were humans living there.

[hespa.livejournal.com]

No combustion engine. We still have the internet (though it took longer to propagate), so we can still communicate with people on the other side of the world, but to actually meet any of them would take many weeks or even months of travel. Other countries (outside of our immediate neighbours) still seem like exotic, mysterious places, with customs and cultures far removed from our own.

I don't know if it would work like that, but that's as far as I've gotten in five minutes of thought...

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Still a nifty idea. Still horse-drawn, steam driven, electric... lots of interesting possibilities.

I love the original film version of On The Beach (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053137/) for one wonderful shot of a Melbourne steet. It's an ordinary, bustling 1950's Melbourne street, and there are two businessmen on horseback! My dad lived in Richmond around that time and kept horses there, he and mum used to go riding.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

The first difference they might notice, if they were paying attention, would be lights on the dark side of the moon. Because we got to the moon, and didn't just come home again

probably still planning manned Mars and asteroid missions tho.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

*wistful sigh* Lights on the moon...

Nazis - the early years

[waylanderpk.livejournal.com]

Look I know you said no nazis winning world war 2, but how about world war 1. Sure they where just krauts back then (apologies for my english centric view :) ). The repercussions to the 20th century would be immense. I'm assuming that Germany employs some modern miltary doctrines - like combined forces, mechanised infantry and wrap up the war in 1914 without too much loss of life. (there where a few German generals who where already thinking along thes lines in the early 1900's so its not too much of a stretch)

With Germany ascendant in Eurppe there is probably no world war 2 (at least in Europe), Airships (see I slipped both of them in) would probably have dominated for far longer (as a side note the reason Germans used hydrogen over helium was economical, the USA had a virtual monoply on helium).

Nuclear weapons might have evolved quicker given a USA/German peace and free exchange of information. The same could be said of computers, even given that the 1st computers were developed for cryptography, a lot of good ideas failed to be cross germinated (pun intended) that could had seen rapid advancements in electronics and calculating machines.

I imagine that a German/UK Europe would have come to terms fairly easily with the USA and proceeded to roll up the USSR before it really gets started (the invasion of Poland by the Communists in the 1920's might never have happened). Japan (faced with that Axis) would satisfy itself with China and other asian holdings, World War 2 never happens.

Because WW2 never happens the corporations don't get rich by profiteering, and the nation state remains strong well into the 21st century. Germany becomes a world power and is the dominant european of the 20th century.

A different cold war starts, between Japan (and its protectorate states, China and Indonesia) with the USA and Europe. Beacuse Japan never got the bomb we don't get Godzilla or Astroboy. The UK maintained much of its empire after world war 1. They are not pauped (both in man power and money) and become one of the centers of economic power in the 20th century.

Flying cars would be common place by the late 60's. The moon is colonised by the Japanes about 1970 and the Europeans not long after. The USA, not to be left out send ships to mars and the Planet is colonosied 1980. Spookily enough the main form of transport on mars becomes airships.

In 2002 with resources becoming scarce there is a push for the asteriod belts and the 1st interplanetary war breaks out.

Just my 2c worth ;)

Re: Nazis - the early years

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I know you put a lot of time and thought into it, but it's a worthless waste of a world without Godzilla in it. *wicked grin*

[prk.livejournal.com]

Different constellations in the sky at night - no Southern Cross.

A slightly different level of gravity, be it higher or lower.

Some resource we take for granted (eg glass or rubber) isn't commercially viable to produce in large quantities.

[phred-has-sonar.livejournal.com]

- When the Comics Code Authority is introduced in 1954, instead of just harming comic sales it kills them off entirely within a year. This leads to a modern world without comics. The only people who would have heard of Captain America and Superman would be your Grandparents. The only country to possibly be still making comics would be Japan and it would be a phenomena that would stay in that country due to how much their content often breaches the CCA.

- Nintendo didn't enter the console market and kept making playing cards.