Musician's Vanguard | HMS Vanguard's Story

Prologue: An Experimental World

Within the dark confines of curiosity in the minds of many people there is one topic that is studied and highly popular when it comes to turning that type of topic into media. Some are written in books, some are short stories, some are drawn into imaginary paintings, and some, are turned into films.

The concept of sci-fi or time travel are back in the late 1800s when H.G. Wells published his book entitled, "The Time Machine" in 1895, covering the curiosity and adventures in making a machine that can travel through time, whether from the past or the future.

Time travel will be then conceptulized and studied by Albert Einstein, in his Theory of Relativity which dwells deep into the linking of time and space. He published his idea in 1916 to which he explains how time works in his theory. His theory says that time and space are linked together. In it, he also suggested that gravity is not a force, as Newton had believed, but the result of a curvature of the space-time continuum, the four dimensional world in which we live.

Then, in 1954, a Princeton University doctoral applicant by the name of Hugh Everett III proposed the concept of parallel universes that co-exist with and diverge from our own universe.

It is more sci-fi related when the concept of a familiar universe but somehow different to the original world. Huge comparisons were made to the original and the alternate world. But they're still conceptual ideas and they aren't experimented due to the high price of making such experiments to confirm that it was true.

With these two now published to the public, many authors and then comics soon used these ideas in creating many stories both sci-fi and confusing to the readers. Many fictional stories were then published about Time Travel and Alternate Universes, a long gap from H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel.

Soon, many fictional stories about Time Travel began making new laws that are far from the idea itself. Those laws of Time Travel were given in random cause and effects as the most popular rule in time travel was the rule;

"When something was change in the past, even from the smallest bit, the future changes to what you left behind."

Or to put it simply, when something changes in the past either from a major event in history or from the smallest bit of history, the future will change when the traveler returns to the "present".

Changing the past also changes the present which also changes the future. 

With intelligence and memories from the original timeline, when the past is change, a switch in the timeline will seperate, creating an alternate timeline that would show the effects of the changed past.

When there are alternate timelines, it also means an alternate reality or world.

Those questions are filled with that of WHAT IF?

Considering that Time Travel, Alternate Timelines, and Alternate Universes existed in fiction, one word combines all three words that would give the readers a taste on their questions of What Ifs if a major event in history was changed to what they have learned in their history books.

That word was...

ALTERNATE HISTORY

Alternate history is a work of fiction or "still in research concept" that follows a certain alternate timeline if a significant event in history was changed from the original timeline. It is not historical revisionism. It then became a genre in the book industry, following the many types of media such as  in comics or in films.

The genre of Alternate History can make very good fiction and creating a world, where certain events are changed, which can make an interesting story. Which is why the genre was so successful over the years and was still continuing to do so.