Points Of Departure

Every alternate history scenario has a “Point of Departure” (POD) where the timeline diverges from our own history. In the world of “A Different Earth” (ADE) we have three POD’s.

The first POD is the period between 15,000 BC and 10,000 BC. During this post-ice age period certain key North and South American mammals DID NOT become extinct through over-hunting as they did on our Earth and survived in numbers sufficient to benefit Native American cultural evolution.

Horses, Camels, and Mastodons were used as transportation, beasts of burden, and instruments of war. Woodland Musk Ox, Peccaries, and Tapirs were domesticated for livestock animals. The American continent already had abundant crops material including, maize, beans, squash, quinoa, potatoes, maygrass, chilies, and cotton.

This seemingly simple change allowed Native American culture to advance on par with Old World cultures. Subsistence hunting and gathering yielded more quickly to agrarian cultures and then to regional states and true nations. Technology advanced steadily as growing American cultures came into contact through peaceful trade and territorial or ideological warfare. Close association with herd and livestock animals gave Americans rudimentary inoculation to a variety of diseases and made them more robust when Old and New World cultures came into widespread contact.

In the end, Old World expansionism did not find a continent ripe for plundering. England and Spain did establish large colonies in the east and north that later became independant nations; Chinese explorers settled and expanded into the southwestern coast and great basin; and Russians conquered far north areas. However the three largest Native American cultures stood their ground and maintained their national borders largely intact.

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The second POD is that just about every cryptid and creature from folklore is real and, to one degree or another, an acknowledged part of the world. They’re not found in large numbers and they won’t jump out at you from every dark closet, but they are real and there are logical explanations for them. Here are a few brief examples…

Bigfoots (Gigantopithecus Sasquatch) are tribes of reclusive hominids somewhere between gorillas and humans on the evolutionary scale. Sasquatch occasionally mingle with the Native American cultures but ever since Hudson’s Bay Company found out about them in the early 18th century all of the Sasquatch within their borders have been enslaved and treated like beasts of burden. HBC continues to deny Sasquatch rights and an underground movement exists to liberate and transport enslaved Sasquatch to free reservations in The Chinook Union and Mississippian Federation. Related species such as G. Yeti (Tibet), G. Yowie (Australia), G. Yeren (China), and G. Mawas (Malaysia) are found in most remote places on the planet.

The Loch Ness Monster is a plesiosaur and similar beasts, like Altamaha-ha and Champ are found in larger lakes and oceans across the planet. Other remnant prehistoric breeds walk the planet, such as the Mokele M’bembe in Africa, Brosnya in Russia, and Teratorns in Amazonia

El Chupacabra is a giant semi-flightless bat that stalks the herds of Aztlan ranchers mutilating livestock, eating soft organs, and drinking blood.

Mothman is a giant species of forest owl that sometimes nests in suspension bridges.

Werewolves are humans who have succumbed to a rare viral infection that causes violent mood swings and transient physical deformities that coincide with the phases of the moon. The disease is communicable through saliva injected by bite wounds. The virus causes extremely fast healing in Werewolves but silver bullets aren’t required to kill them.

Vampires are victims of another rare virus that causes a leukemia-like disease. They require regular transfusions of blood to survive and, luckily for them, their virus-affected canine teeth are hollow and hook right up their circulatory system to facilitate their needs. Vampires also have an extreme allergy to vitamin D so that they must stay out of direct sunlight at all times. Aversion to crosses, super-strength, and shape-shifting are just old wives tales.

Fairytale creatures, however, like unicorns, dragons, and elves, do not exist. Sorry, one has to draw the line somewhere.

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The final POD for ADE is the supernatural. In this world, ghosts and poltergeists are real and sensitive people, through the use of tribal magic, can act as conduits for communication and interaction between the real world and the spirit world.

We’re not talking about the Merlin or Swords and Sorcery magic, here. Tribal magic is elaborate ritual chanting and drumming and dancing, peyote intoxication and vision quests, mystical séances with crystal balls and tarot and runes stones. Tribal magic takes time, takes energy, and takes a practitioner who is in tune with the world beyond our five senses. You know them as shamans, witch doctors, medicine men, gypsies, mediums, astrologers, palmists, mystics, seers, fortunetellers, mundunugus, sangomas, bomohs, witches, and voodoo priests.

The spirits themselves are the other half of the tribal magic team. They are the vital energy that animates our flesh and blood, Freed of their earthly bonds but not ready to move on to their great reward, they linger on the edge of the physical world. Some carry anger or love or fear around with them and ooze these emotions into our perceptions. Some are helpful and communicative, some are malicious or mischievous, and still others go about their business as if they did not know that their bodies were dead and gone. Some spirits are tied to a place or person, others are free to come and go as they like. Some spirits require tribal magic to interact with our world and others require tribal magic to stop their otherworldly rampages or to set them on the path to peace and rest.

God, gods, demons, angels, and the like do not interact with man in ADE. Certainly there are religions here, all of the typical ones and a few new ones too, but religion is a matter of faith, a question of what lies beyond this world and the spirit world. Mischievous or confused spirits may play at “Acts of God” but the truly Devine has a “hands off” policy in ADE.