Answering History answers for a Non-existing modern world.

[Addison]

Hello everybody, come one, come all!

Seriously guys, I need help.

I recently had my story read by my kid siblings and some of their friends. Good new is they enjoyed it, gave great critique, bad news is three of the scary-smart ones asked if the setting would still be called that "Portland" and if other such things would be invented or happen as is given the premise of the world.

I tried to say yes but, as I live by a rule of not lying, I couldn't because I honestly didn't know.

My world is based on the premise of, in viewing our modern world, asking "What if magic never died/disappeared?". Obviously some things would change, small and big, so some events in our history would change or disappear altogether. My head-hurting conundrum is just how much changes. The event of magic not going poof (away-forever-poof) starts in celtic times. So a lot from that stage on could change. As a writer I'll still have a final say but I need to make it real as it is based on our kind of modern realm.

So let's say when the settlers first arrived in America (after Columbus missed big time) how would things change? The French-Indian war, I don't know how much of a magic scene is/was in French culture but, with magic as much a part of life as meat and hunting, the Natives would send them packing. The Salem Witch Trials would turn out...well I haven't decided yet but some things would happen.

I know more about the mythologies of places than their histories so my knowledge isn't exactly balanced to make a stable, believable world. I've been trying to do it myself but I have nearly driven myself insane as many times as I've driven my family nuts. So any and all help on a theoretical-history angle is HUGELY appreciated and welcome. If it'll help to read what I have so far, let me know and I'll post it.

 

[skip.knox]

Are you asking specifically about the name Portland? Or are you asking about the course of three hundred years of history at a gulp? *gulp*

I presume the latter. If so, you might take a hint from Doctor Who--the notion that there are some points in time that cannot be changed while others can. Your challenge would be to decide what cannot change. Very roughly, you are looking at politics, economics, society, and culture.

For example, America develops economically more or less as it did. There's an Industrial Revolution, it happened more or less the same. BUT, with the addition of magic, perhaps some things turn out differently. Flying cars. Or magic instead of atomic power. Or you can just leave all that well enough alone.

For politics, is America still a republic? Does it have a president, etc., with elections? Do you keep the same presidents? Is there another cabinet member, Secretary of Magic?

You see, once you decide what are the fixed points, then you are free to futz around with other aspects. There's a big caveat here, though. You really do need to know your history first, in order to futz with finesse.

 

[Geo]

Now, something interesting you may want to considered is that, if magic never disappeared, how the magic of Europe would be different from the magic of the Americans?

Would be the native Americans, from Cherokees to Mayans to be so easily defeated if they have there own magic well and working?

At the time of Columbus, American civilizations were still on their sympathetic-magic stages, contrary to Europe, where magic was already more on it's abstract stage of development... so what magic is the strongest? how do they react to each other?

Of course, there is the chance that nothing much changed... then you have a story on the lines of Seventh Son (Orson Scott Card), where magic still exists and it's use often, religion also exist. Then you have a young US where both types of mysticism coexisted but that resulted in the modern day US.

 

[Addison]

There are fixed points of fate, which my lead brings up when he sees the pieces fitting together for certain events.

I'm sorry about my first post, I was kind of having a panic attack. Anyone who has given their precious story to strangers and had a key aspect of their world hit like that know what I'm talking about. I hope, if not then I need a vacation.

To clarify, I have picked out the route my lead will take, which will basically cover the globe. Not every single country but enough to due diligence. I'm still picking out which historical events he'll witness on his travels but what I want to hit on, and correctly, is the myths, magic and culture of each country on the head. For example I don't want to have him meet Genghis Kahn only to have the magic being used by Kahn be Korean or something by accident.

So if anyone can reference sites or books, or their own knowledge, on mythology around different countries and cultures will be very helpful. I've got some covered but I need help with; Roman, Gypsy, Italy, France, Mongolia, the Middle East, Central and South Africa. Okay any and all knowledge on all mythologies. I know German, Irish and Norse pretty well as they're my heritage. Whatever you got, let me have it.

 

[skip.knox]

What time period for the story? That will change your inventory of available cultures.

What you're talking about here is vast. Seriously vast, as in probably out of reach in any practical sense. Even if you read only one book about each culture (I refrain from saying "country", which would make the list even longer), you're talking hundreds of hours of reading. And then you would have only a very superficial understanding of each. You know that aphorism about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing?

The danger with writing anything with pretensions to accuracy (scientific, historical, whatever) is that a segment of your readers will go instantly on high alert. To avoid jarring them out of the story, you'll need to provide a level of verisimilitude greater than you would for a fictional world.

Now, maybe if your character does little more than land at the airport and stay overnight in a motel (or whatever equivalent), you can get away with little more than a superficial touch or two. But if there's actual story in each place, then the warnings above apply.

You asked for reference books. Seriously, just start with a textbook for each culture. No need to be current, just any one from a second-hand bookstore will do fine. It'll be dull, because textbooks are dull, but it will do the job. Then, wherever you want to dig deeper, do a library search on that more specific topic. Check back with us in a couple of decades at let us know how it's going!

 

[Addison]

Okay so the worry got to my head. I have the places he stops at figured and everything. I just need to plot it out in place and time. The key event, the one he stops- thus beginning his mission- is stopping the Irish Sea God Manaan from erasing the Fairy Queen's memory of her human lover Cuchulian, whom she wished to marry, and doing the same to Cuchulian. Thus they would marry, the human and fey worlds would be united and send a positive ripple effect. If I can find a way to make a map and upload it to my computer, I'll post it.

 

[Penpilot]

As Skip pointed out, what would change is a massive question.If you adhere to the butterfly effect, one small change can change the world. Imagine what a huge change would do?

I think Dr. Who is a good thing to bring up. It swaps out some of the realism of time travel for fun. If they treat the consequences of time travel too seriously it kills the fun and adventure of the prospect.

So for your story, change what you want to change and keep what you want to keep. It doesn't matter as long as you're consistent and reasonably thoughtful.

If magic never left, maybe you can assume all cultures had reasonable access to it, so the power and technological imbalances remain the same. It's like adding 10 points to every one's stat sheet in a game. If it's uniform across the board, then it doesn't change much in terms of relative power.

For things like the Salem Witch trials. You can go in many different directions. First you could make the accuse really witches for a certain effect. OR you could keep things sort of the same. The accused were completely innocent and let it stand as a case of f-ed up paranoia among other things. And have real witches be shaking their heads at the stupidity of the acts.

 

[skip.knox]

Citing Irish mythology certainly places the story pre-industrial. So talking about "countries" is right out. Whole parts of the world are literally pre-historic (before written records). Of course, you also are not talking about the real world (unless you believe--and wish your reader to believe--that Manaan is/was real), so that makes things way simpler. You don't have to be historically accurate, you only need to be mythically accurate. So, no danger of getting Genghis Khan wrong.

Then again, your examples come from such radically different periods, are you thinking of juxtaposing them? That's possible, even possibly interesting. It just makes any attempt at helping out feel even more, well, helpless.

Or, to quote a Master: insufficient data for meaningful answer.

 

[Ben]

Alright, just spit-balling here, but I think a cool idea would be to have magic exist, but still be very hush-hush so it's not generally known. The practitioners keep a low profile and try to influence world events without anyone noticing.

Every once in a while they screw up and people notice something weird happens - a magic bullet kills Kennedy, Jimmie Hoffa got turned into a sentient plant, Monica Lewinski has a magic semen-preserving dress, etc - make up some amusing magical causes for unexplained major historical events.

Maybe can be two opposing factions battling for domination from the shadows.

Does something like this already exist? Maybe I'm unconsciously borrowing from somewhere