It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction ; different alternate history works may use tropes from any or all of these genres.

Since the 1950s, this type of fiction has to a large extent merged with science fictional tropes involving cross-time travel between alternate histories or psychic awareness of the existence of " our " universe by the people in another ; or ordinary voyaging uptime ( into the past ) or downtime ( into the future ) that results in history splitting into two or more time-lines.

Cross-time, time-splitting and alternate history themes have become so closely interwoven that it is impossible to discuss them fully apart from one another.

In French, Italian, Spanish and German, alternate history novels are called uchronie.

" This term apparently also inspired the name of the alternate history book list, uchronia. net.

In writing an alternate history, the author makes the conscious choice to change something in our past.

According to Steven H Silver, alternate history requires three things: 1 ) the story must have a point of divergence from the history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing, 2 ) a change that would alter history as it is known, and 3 ) an examination of the ramifications of that change.

Science fiction set in what was the future but is now the past, like Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey or Nineteen Eighty-Four, are not alternate history because the author has not made the conscious choice to change the past.

Secret history, works that document things that are not known to have happened historically but would not have changed history had they happened, is also not to be confused with alternate history.

* List of alternate history fiction

Focuses on Watchmen as alternate history.

* AlternateHistory. com-largest alternate history discussion forum on the Internet.

* Counter-Factual. net-site dedicated to alternate history as well as other topics, such as science fiction and creative writing.

* HistoryAlternate. com-another alternate history discussion forum.

* Soc. history. what-if-the usenet newsgroup on alternate history with over a decade of archives.

* Alternate History Weekly Update: a blog featuring commentary on alternate history news.

* Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction, frequently publishes alternate history stories.

* Uchronia has an introduction to the topic, and lists over 2000 works of alternate history.

* Moriarty by Modem, a short story by Jack Nimersheim, describes an alternate history where Babbage's Analytical Engine was indeed completed and had been deemed highly classified by the British government.

* Changing The Times, is an Alternate History Electronic Magazine written and maintained by alternate historians.

For lower level epics, these groups use alternate characters maintained at the boss ' level to wait and kill the boss while other members of the group stay on their mains to defend the lower level character.

According to a British account, the French played on this sympathy in 1855 by pressuring Prince Rakoto into signing a request for French aid that would have enabled France to establish control over Madagascar had the true nature of the letter and its signing not been uncovered by Rakoto and his British contacts An alternate explanation was offered by Lambert, who maintained that the prince had knowingly supported the attempt to put an end to his mother's harsh policies, and was a willing collaborator in a failed 1857 plot to remove her from the throne.

The Canary Trainer describes Holmes's adventures during the " Great Hiatus " of 1891-4, when ( according to the Sherlockian Canon ) he was traveling the world, trying to escape the minions of Professor Moriarty ; in Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, however, a different impetus is given for this period, and this alternate scenario is maintained here.

Two separate catalog databases are maintained under the USSTRATCOM: a primary catalog by the Air Force Space Command ( AFSPC ), and an alternate catalog by the Naval Space Command ( NSC ).

On occasion sheep have appeared in several alternate and bizarre university locations ( to the consternation of campus security ), and when weather and / or circumstances precluded the presence of live animals, sheep-themed actions have maintained the tradition.

The ' true ' demons were sealed long ago within an alternate universe, named the Forbidding ; this prison is ' maintained ' by the Ellcrys, a sacred Elven tree ; if she dies, the Forbidding fails.

As you can see, in this Push-Pull Super Set the entire chest-back-shoulder area is vigorously exercised in alternate sectors by alternate exercises so the complete torso remains pumped-up all the time!!

Squat-style lifters and leg-split lifters would both benefit enormously by practicing those variations providing that they remember to make alternate sets with the left and right leg to the front.

In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road.

The term Building design professional ( or Design professional ), by contrast, is a much broader term including professionals who practice independently under an alternate profession, such as engineering professionals, or those who assist in the practice architecture under the supervision of a licensed architect, such as architectural technologists and intern architects.

One particularly notable example was an alternate adaptor designed by BMUG and commercialized by Farallon as PhoneNet.

* Autodynamics, an alternate to special relativity proposed by Ricardo Carezani in physics

If the individual is seeking death an alternate method is often suicide by cop.

Since then, many alternate proofs have been found out by various authors as collected in ().

Additionally, in the alternate history novel Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, Boudicca is the subject of a play written by William Shakespeare to incite the people of Britain to revolt against Spanish conquerors.

These events are usually separated by periods of " normal " mood ; but, in some individuals, depression and mania may rapidly alternate, which is known as rapid cycling.

Individuals who alternate between top / dominant and bottom / submissive roles – whether from relationship to relationship or within a given relationship – are known as switches, though the term is occasionally seen as derogatory or unnuanced and is rejected by many who might simplistically fit the definition.

The term originally signified a chant by alternate choirs, but has quite lost this meaning in the Breviary.

* In the manga / anime Gintama, the main character, Gintoki Sakata, wields a bokken as opposed to a katana, as the story takes place in an Edo period of an alternate timeline where a weapons ban has been imposed by imperialistic aliens.

It appears that the particular term, with its more definite sense, was coined by Heisenberg in the 1950s, while criticizing alternate " interpretations " ( e. g., David Bohm's ) that had been developed.

An alternate form of ( 2 ) – the machine successively prints all n of the digits on its tape, halting after printing the n < sup > th </ sup > – emphasizes Minsky's observation: ( 3 ) That by use of a Turing machine, a finite definition – in the form of the machine's table – is being used to define what is a potentially-infinite string of decimal digits.

Chinese checkers ( alternate spelling Chinese chequers ) is a board game that can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners.