Never Was This Universe: Difference between revisions
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[[Alternate History]] provides a method for creating a setting which is almost like our world, but varies in large enough ways that they couldn't [[Plausible Deniability|plausibly]] actually be ours.
This trope covers settings which feel like [[Alternate History]] in this way, but don't actually have a specified point of divergence: no matter how far back in history you look, their history has ''always'' been different from ours in some way (frequently, though not always, because it contains un-[[The Masquerade|Masqueraded]] fantasy elements). [[In Spite of a Nail]] is necessarily in effect, in order to keep the setting approximately similar to the real
Compare [[Alien Space Bats]]; it's nearly always possible to [[Retcon]] this sort of world into an alternate history with [[Alien Space Bats]], by adding in a point of divergence that's earlier than any other history you've introduced. Also compare [[Historical Fantasy]]. See also [["Close Enough" Timeline]] and [[Rubber Band History]]. Contrast [[Plausible Deniability]].
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** Turtledove also has a fondness for replicating early American history in bizarre settings, such as one where the Americas were colonized by ''Homo erectus'' instead of paleo-Indians and the megafauna survived (''A Different Flesh'') or another where the entire East Coast detached at some point in the Mesozoic and became an island continent inhabited by flightless birds a la New Zealand (''Audubon in Atlantis'' and sequels).
* The world of ''[[Go Mutants]]'' differs from our own in a plethora of ways, ranging from the truly bizarre (the existence of [[Godzilla|Gojira]] and other [[Kaiju]], aliens landing on Earth and interrupting a baseball game in 1963) to some things more mundane ([[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] beats [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] and is later assassinated by John Glenn), but it's definitely not even close to our universe.
* ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]'' is set on a [[Present Day]] Earth much like ours, but different in that functioning magic exists and takes the place of more advanced
* According to [[Word of God]], though Urth is ostensibly a distant future of our own Earth, {{spoiler|even containing relics such as a photograph of the Apollo moon landing}}, [[The Book of the New Sun]]
== Live-Action TV ==
* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|The Buffyverse]], while seeming like ours until the mid-2000s, diverts wildly in many places. Hitler was trying to build a vampire army. The US Government was trying to build a vampire army at the same time. Demons, vampires and other creatures have existed since the beginning of our universe, which was ruled over by the Old Ones. Mass carnage created by them was a common sight in the past. And a California city doesn't exist, instead being replaced with Sunnydale. Oh, and Cleveland is, [[Take That|in a clear violation of anything physically possible]], actually even shittier.
* The [[Mirror Universe]] in ''[[Star Trek]]'' is said to be of such a nature. In the ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' episode "In A Mirror Darkly", mirror Phlox says that he's looked through the USS Defiant's database and found consistent differences in history and
* The TV series ''[[Kings]]'' apparently ''does'' take place on Earth, but the exact location of the fictional countries is never revealed and the precise historical era remains a mystery (though the society and tech ranges from [[Cold War]] to [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]] levels). The only clear-cut reference to our world is a throw-away line about Franz Liszt.
* The [[Alternate Universe]] seen in ''[[Fringe]]'' looks to be this way as there is no set divergence point mentioned, as of yet. But the map of the US clearly shows different borders for states plus most of California is missing, [[Zeppelins from Another World|the Zeppelins]], Martin Luther King Jr. is on the twenty instead of Andrew Jackson, and their technology is a little more advanced, although a lot of what was shown was created by {{spoiler|"our" universe's William Bell}}.
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== Video Games ==
* Strangereal in the ''[[Ace Combat]]'' series is an alternate version of our Earth with virtually identical nature and humans and a roughly [[Present Day]] tech level, but the continents are completely different (their shape often hints at an amusingly warped and twisted version of our real landmasses). The countries and nations are completely fictional as well, but are all thinly-veiled [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture
* To some degree, ''[[Fallout]]''. Sure, the point of historical divergence can be pinned down to the 1940s, but their laws of physics (especially involving nuclear physics, of course) are different enough that it would mean that the real point of divergence would have to have been sometime during the ''very formation'' of the ''Fallout'' universe.
* What ''[[Touhou]]'' shows of the world outside of [[Fantastic Ghetto|Gensokyo]] seems to put it in this trope. [[Youkai]] and magical creatures co-existed for millennia with humans (and some still do), [[Physical God
* The MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is much like this; even though the history of its Earth follows many of the same events as those in our world, there is no clear point at which they diverge, as events such as the magic-laden wars between Mu and Oranbega take place thousands of years in the past.
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