"Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’"
— Robert F. Kennedy (paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw)
Alternate History has numerous associated tropes, answering questions of how history could have happened differently.
See also Alternate Universe, This Index Is Anachronistic, and Time Travel Tropes.
Tropes:
- Advanced Ancient Humans: An ancient or even prehistoric human civilization that was far more technologically advanced than later human societies.
- Humanity Came From Space: Humans are not actually from Earth, and only settled down here from another planet a very long time ago.
- Airstrip One
- Alien Space Bats: A catchall term for alternate history scenarios which involve sci-fi/fantasy elements, or are otherwise very implausible and unrealistic.
- Alliance of Alternates: Incarnations of the same person from different universes, continuities and/or timelines teaming up.
- Allohistorical Allusion
- Alternate-History Nazi Victory: Nazi Germany (and presumably the other Axis powers as well) win World War II.
- Fourth Reich: The Nazis somehow rise to power again after losing WWII.
- Godwin's Law of Time Travel: Using time travel to meddle with the past increases the chances of a German victory in WWII.
- Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Time-traveling assassins who try to kill Adolf Hitler in the past will usually fail (and even if they do succeed, it may result in undesirable consequences).
- Alternate History Wank
- Alternate Landmark History
- Alternate Self
- Alternate Techline
- Alternate Timeline: A different series of events compared to our original timeline.
- Alternate Universe: A different counterpart to our universe.
- Bizarro Universe: A universe where everything is the opposite version of its regular counterpart.
- Mirror Universe: A universe where morality is reversed, with the counterparts of good people being evil and vice versa.
- Never Was This Universe: A work takes place in a universe that clearly has a different history from the real world, but no clear point of divergence.
- Ancient Astronauts: Alien visitors came down to Earth during prehistoric/ancient times and influenced the development of early human civilizations.
- Artistic License – History: When a work of historical fiction contains factual inaccuracies that are more the result of poor research or outright carelessness, rather than an intentional effort at writing a different take on history.
- Atlantis: A legendary ancient island civilization which was said to have been destroyed and sank into the ocean. It has appeared in many different works of fiction as a place which really existed, either as a bunch of submerged ancient ruins or somehow still thriving and inhabited.
- Balkanize Me: A real country gets divided into smaller countries following a major war or other great political upheaval.
- Been There, Shaped History: A fictional character who was involved in real historical events.
- Black Vikings: Someone who is a member of a distantly foreign ethnic group appears in a very unlikely historical setting.
- Butterfly of Doom: Changes to the historical past result in very wildly extreme or unpredictable outcomes for the future.
- Close-Enough Timeline
- Conspiracy Theories: Most conspiracy theories are pseudohistorical claims that various real-life events had allegedly occurred very differently from mainstream records of those events, and are being kept secret by people who don't want the public to know what actually happened.
- Dated History
- Day of the Jackboot
- Dead Alternate Counterpart
- Demon King Nobunaga: The 16th century Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga was actually (or became) a supernatural being.
- Did Anastasia Survive?: What if the Grand Duchess Anastasia (the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia) had somehow managed to escape the executions of the Romanov dynasty during the Russian Revolution?
- Different States of America: Different versions of the history and geography of the United States.
- America Is Still a Colony: The British colonies in North America never became independent, as The American Revolution was either thwarted or averted altogether.
- Americasia: Western North America was colonized by East Asians instead of Europeans.
- Divided States of America: The USA has been balkanized, usually because of the Civil War (or its sequel).
- Evil States of America: The USA has become The Empire.
- Expanded States of America: The USA has acquired many more states and territories than it did in real life.
- Fallen States of America: The USA has grown weak and no longer qualifies as a global superpower, or may not even exist anymore.
- Fantasy Americana: The USA as a magical setting.
- Invaded States of America: The USA is under foreign military occupation.
- Mexico Called; They Want Texas Back: Mexico has regained (or never lost) control over the US state of Texas (and maybe even the rest of the Southwestern United States).
- Russia Called; They Want Alaska Back: Russia has regained (or never lost) control over the the US state of Alaska.
- Oppressive States of America: The USA is under an authoritarian/totalitarian system of government.
- Different World, Different Movies: Works of fictional media that only exist in alternate timelines.
- Double-Blind What-If: People living in an alternate timeline ponder how different things would be if history had turned out more like it did in the real world.
- Elvis Lives: Elvis Presley didn't actually die of a heart attack in 1977, he just faked his death and is hiding out somewhere.
- Elvis Has Left the Planet: He left Earth to move to another planet.
- Eurabia: All or most of the nations of Europe (and the Western/Christian world) have somehow been conquered and converted by the Arab/Muslim world.
- Failed Future Forecast
- Famously Mundane, Fictionally Magical: Something which exists in real life has supernatural features in fiction.
- Area 51: A US Air Force base in Nevada that is said to be secretly housing captured alien spacecraft (usually recovered from Roswell, New Mexico).
- The Bermuda Triangle: An area of the Atlantic Ocean (somewhere between Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico) that is supernaturally prone to causing the strange disappearances of ships and planes that cross it.
- Curse of the Pharaoh: The ruins of Ancient Egypt are haunted, and the tombs of mummified pharaohs are especially cursed. Grave-robbers and archaeologists dare to enter at their own risk.
- Mystical Hollywood: America's entertainment capital is a literally magical place. May be haunted by the spirits of dead celebrities.
- Fictional Earth: An alternate counterpart of our real planet, which features (radically) different political and/or physical geography; up to and including completely unrecognizable continents and oceans.
- Fictional Country: A made-up sovereign nation-state which has been inserted into an otherwise-identical map of the real world.
- Fictional Province: A province, state, or other sub-national region of a real-world country which only exists in-universe.
- No Communities Were Harmed: A fictional city which is based on a real city, and which may even be an in-universe stand-in for it.
- Fictional Political Party: A made-up political organization which participates in a real-world government.
- Fictional United Nations: An international diplomatic organization which acts as an expy of the real United Nations.
- Flash Sideways
- For Want of a Nail
- Ghostapo: Nazi Germany tries to weaponize various forms of dark magic or supernatural phenomena to gain an advantage in World War II.
- Nazi Zombies: Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht soldiers who have been turned into undead minions.
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler: A more sci-fi version of Ghostapo, in which the Nazis try to develop futuristic technology and super-weapons.
- We Didn't Start the Führer: Adolf Hitler was actually (or became) a supernatural being.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: A time-traveler from the future decides to introduce modern technology to the past.
- Historical Domain Character: Any character who existed as an actual person from real-world history, though they may be depicted extremely differently in works of fiction.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: A historical figure's life or identity was secretly far more fantastical than what we know about.
- Julius Beethoven da Vinci: A long-lived or immortal character turns out to have assumed the identities of one or more historical figure(s).
- You Will Be Beethoven: A time-traveler from the future assumed the identity of a historical figure.
- Fictionalized Death Account: A historical figure's death happens much differently from real life.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: A historical figure is depicted as being more brave, tough, and awesome than they were in reality.
- Historical Beauty Update: A historical figure is depicted as being much more physically attractive than they actually were.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative: A fictional character who is somehow a blood relative of a real person.
- Historical Downgrade
- Historical Gender Flip: A real person has a different gender or sex in fiction.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: A historical figure is depicted as being much more good and heroic than they were in reality.
- Historical Hilarity
- Historical Person Punchline
- Historical Domain Superperson: A historical figure possesses superhuman abilities.
- Historical Ugliness Update: A historical figure is depicted to look more physically unattractive than they actually were.
- Historical Villain Downgrade: A historical figure who was well-known for committing some very bad deeds has them downplayed in fiction.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: A historical figure is depicted as being much more evil and villainous than they were in reality.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: A fictional expy character who is clearly based on a real historical person, but they have a different name and identity.
- Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: A historical figure's life or identity was secretly far more fantastical than what we know about.
- Historical Fantasy: When supernatural beings and events are inserted into a historical setting that is otherwise based on the real world.
- Urban Fantasy: Similar to the above, except that the setting is based on the modern-day real world rather than in the distant past.
- Interdimensional Travel Device
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Alternate names for real locations.
- Mass Teleportation
- Middle Eastern Coalition: All or most of the nations of the Greater Middle East (and the Arab/Muslim world) have somehow been united under one big caliphate/empire/federation, or at least form a cohesive geopolitical alliance.
- Mirror Self
- Modern Mayincatec Empire: A pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization that still exists today.
- Non Sequitur Causality
- One-Man Industrial Revolution
- One World Order: All the nations of Earth have somehow been united under one big global government.
- Take Over the World: Some players in the game of geopolitical strife have somehow managed to achieve total global domination; whether by conquering and annexing all other territories, or at least by becoming the biggest and strongest superpower in the world.
- America Takes Over the World: The whole world is somehow under the effective control of the USA.
- China Takes Over the World: The whole world is somehow under the effective control of China.
- Japan Takes Over the World: The whole world is somehow under the effective control of Japan.
- Russia Takes Over the World: The whole world is somehow under the effective control of Russia or the USSR.
- United Nations Is a Superpower: The United Nations has somehow become much more powerful than it ever was in reality, exercising actual authority over its member states, if not behaving as a true world government.
- Take Over the World: Some players in the game of geopolitical strife have somehow managed to achieve total global domination; whether by conquering and annexing all other territories, or at least by becoming the biggest and strongest superpower in the world.
- Point of Divergence: The significant date in an alternate timeline at which it stops resembling real history.
- Politically Correct History: When modern cultural attitudes (especially regarding morality and prejudices) are injected into a historical setting in which people of the time held radically different beliefs.
- Possible War: A potential military conflict which some expected to happen in the past (or future).
- Second American Civil War: The United States goes through yet another Civil War.
- World War III: The tentative sequel to the previous two World Wars. Most WWIII scenarios involve the Cold War between the USA, USSR, China, etc. turning into a hot war that ultimately ends with a global nuclear holocaust.
- World War Whatever: World Wars IV, V, VI, etc. May have to be fought with sticks and stones since nothing else was left after WWIII.
- Prevent the War: A real-life war has been averted in this timeline.
- Avoiding the Great War: World War I never happened as we know it.
- Putting on the Reich
- Real Event, Fictional Cause: An unconventional (or even fantastic) explanation is given for a real historical event.
- Caused the Big Bang: There's a lot more to the story of how the universe began than we know of.
- The Lost Colony of Roanoke: What caused the abandonment of Roanoke, a short-lived English settlement in what's now present-day North Carolina during the late 16th century?
- Moon-Landing Hoax: NASA's famous Apollo 11 space mission which saw American astronauts land on the Moon never actually happened. The US government decided to just save money by staging a fake Moon landing at a film studio instead.
- Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: Something else besides a meteorite caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
- Roswell That Ends Well: Rather than a weather balloon, an alien spaceship crash-landed near the town of Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
- Salem Is Witch Country: The infamous Salem witch trials that occurred around colonial Massachusetts in 1692 were not merely the result of superstitious mass hysteria — because (at least some of) the unlucky defendants actually were practicing genuine witchcraft.
- The Tunguska Event: A large explosion that happened in the remote Siberian wilderness of the Russian Empire in 1908. While believed to be the result of a meteorite, it may have been something more than that...
- Who Shot JFK?: John F. Kennedy's assassination was not just the work of Lee Harvey Oswald, who is said to have been just one actor in a convoluted Government Conspiracy.
- Rubber-Band History
- Schizo Tech: Anachronistic technology (i.e. futuristic machines in the past).
- Secret History
- Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility: Just how possible or realistic is this alternate timeline?
- Soviet Superscience: This is Stalin's answer to Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
- Space-Filling Empire
- Split Timelines Plot
- Stock Unsolved Mysteries
- Those Magnificent Flying Machines: The invention and proliferation of hypothetical aircraft.
- Zeppelins from Another World: Airships never went out of fashion.
- United Europe: All or most of the nations of Europe have somehow been united under one big empire or federation (for example, a larger and more powerful version of the real-life European Union).
- Video Game Historical Revisionism
- Weird Historical War: A real-life war has strange events happen, which may even be of a supernatural nature.
- Weird West: The Wild West, but with strange events and supernatural beings getting involved.
- What If?: The most common way to start a question asking about how history could have gone differently.
