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What is Alternate History?
Script for the first video:


 * On September 26, 1983, an unassuming Monday at the height of the eighties, the world stepped the closest to absolute nuclear annihilation than it has ever been. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defense Forces was alerted to five American nuclear missiles over the computer-based warning system. The Soviet Union at the time, due to Cold War tensions, was ready for an attack and to retaliate swiftly and brutally to it, launching its entire nuclear armament at any warning of an American attack. Petrov, with only minutes to act, dismissed the supposed attack as a false alarm, as the computer system was new and not wholly trustworthy.


 * What if, however, history had taken a slightly different but much darker turn. What if Petrov was assigned to a different operation and another, much more aggressive officer had taken his place? Let’s say the officer on duty believed the attack to be true and he notifies the Kremlin and let’s continue our scenario by assuming that the Soviet authorities believed it to be a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Given the high tensions between the superpowers at the moment, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Within minutes, thousands of nuclear missiles lift off of Soviet soil, destined for targets in Europe and the Americas. The United States logically retaliates with a counterattack, launching all the missiles it can at the Soviet Union and its allies. By the time the original “attack” is proven to be a false alarm, it is too late. The Soviets who launched the attack can only watch as complete and total nuclear war begins to envelop the world over the course of that fateful night until they, too are killed in the massive fireball that envelops Moscow.


 * The survivors of that fateful night emerge to find a world turned upside-down. Most of the Northern Hemisphere is completely devastated, with North America, Europe, and China being the most hard-hit areas. The rest of the world and the few survivors that carried on in those regions were forced to deal with the aftermath of what would become known throughout the world as Doomsday. Food shortages, radiation poisoning, rioters and bandits, revolutions, even changes in climate were just a small sliver of what the years after Doomsday would hold for them. Many thought humanity would cease to exist, going the way of the dinosaurs, killed off in another fireball millions of years ago.


 * Humanity, however, would carry on as it always had and by the twenty-first century, a whole new world would emerge, with the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand and the South American Confederation becoming the major world powers after Doomsday, while a whole slew of other nations emerged, each born out of the circumstances that enveloped it on that fateful Monday. While people survived and even, in a few areas they thrived, no corner of Earth was the same after Doomsday.


 * This is alternate history, a genre of fiction where events in history unfold differently than they have for us. Say, to use an alternate history cliche, that the Second World War was won by the Axis due to a successful invasion of Britain. Maybe the Mongols could’ve continued their westward conquest and eventually ravage medieval Europe. Even our nuclear war timeline was little more than a hop, skip, and jump away from coming true.


 * Alternate history is, first and foremost, a literary genre and authors such as Harry Turtledove and S.M. Stirling have become successful due to their alternate history books. Alternate history themes and elements are also found throughout other works, from Marvel comic books to first-person shooter video games, though they are frequently merged with science fiction tropes like time travel.


 * Alternate history fans have made their mark on the internet from an early date. In 1991, the first major alternate history work on the fledgeling internet, the “Usenet Alternate History List” was established. Over time, fans migrated from mailing lists and usenet groups to web forums and wikis as the internet evolved. Amateur alternate history works also evolved and today, works such as Ill Bethisad, where entire alternate worlds are fully detailed in almost encyclopedic detail have showcased the genre at its fullest. The Alternate History Wiki is a gathering of alternate history fans where works such as the aforementioned 1983: Doomsday call home. Come join us today at one of the most prolific online alternate history communities where anyone can make their own mark on the wide world of althistory.