What Happens Next: SM Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy

This is the first in what I hope may become an ongoing series where I speculate about what happens next after our favorite alternate history books and series conclude. For this inaugural post I cover SM Stirling's famous Nantucket trilogy that began with Island in the Sea of Time. Quick disclaimer: this is all based on my personal opinion.

It has been over twenty years since "The Event" sent the island of Nantucket circa 1998 to the Bronze Age and the world could not be more different. Technology is advancing at a rapid place and the sleepy town of Nantucket is now the center of a vast empire stretching across the Americas, southern Africa and Australasia, with Outport colonies and protectorates across Europe, Asia and Africa.

Of course that is the image the Republic of Nantucket likes to present (especially to its rivals), but in reality things are much more complicated. Most of Nantucket's territory is claimed rather than controlled. Nantucket settlements tend to hug the coast and the government relies on allied indigenous tribes to police the interior. To Nantucket's credit they take their treaties with these tribes seriously (enough people are alive to remember how Native Americans were treated by the country they came from), but they remain untested since there is still a lot of room between the Nantucketers and the natives (the entire world population is only near 100 million, but growing fast as future medicine and sanitation spread). As generations go by and populations grow and expand, conflict is likely inevitable and the Native American cultures of Central America and the Andes are advance enough that conflict may happen sooner rather than latter.

Due to the distances involved in travel or communication, Nantucket is more of a confederation than an empire. Local communities have a lot of autonomy and practice the town meeting form of direct democracy popular in New England. Representatives are sent from across Nantucket's Outports to the assembly in Nantucket proper to represent their interests, although colonies can often get away with not following certain dictates from Nantucket Town on occasion. The former Tartessian colony in California does it all the time and can be considered to be only nominally part of the Nantucket sphere (and if they thought they could get away with it they would break all ties immediately). For defense, communities rely on local militias and its quite common to go out in public armed (heck, most merchant ships carry a couple cannons just in case, even in the most civilized parts of the ocean).

This has made Nantucket rather conservative culturally, with a healthy dose of individual liberty, since most people feel if you don't like the way things are run you can pack up and start a new colony on the cheap and readily available land elsewhere (just as long as there is no one else living there already). Minorities, however, are well protected by Nantucket constitution, especially homosexuals who have long had the right to marry. The dividing social issue of the day is actually polygamy, which has become more popular in the newer colonies. Opponents feel such relationships are destructive for a functioning civilization, while supporters believe there is nothing that should prevent consenting adults from being in whatever relationship they wish to be in and point to many other cultures around the globe who practice it (some have pointed out, however, that you can always find a man who wants another wife, but rarely a woman who wants another husband).

The Coast Guard (still calling itself that despite being a world-spanning navy) is the glue that holds the Republic together. They patrol the sea-ways keeping an eye out for pirates, protect and supply struggling colonies and explore new places to trade and settle. The Age of Sail ended shortly after William Walker was defeated. Now steam ships form the backbone of the fleet, although hybrid sail ships are still used for exploration purposes where coaling stations are a few and far between. Airships are also used for travel and patrol in the more settled areas and there are even some heavier-than-air craft, although they remain rare since few countries fly them.

Alba remains a staunch ally of the Republic (calling them a "protectorate" is considered a high insult these days). Immigrants from there often make up the majority of the population for most colonies and they are well represented in the Nantucket military. They could probably even take the top spot away from Nantucket if the people ever got their act together. There is still a lot of animosity between the Earth Folk and Sun People, especially since the Sun People have become such zealous converts to Christianity and look down on their pagan neighbors. Some Sun People who just couldn't handle the many changes "went viking" in western and northern Europe and the more successful warlords even managed to "pull a Walker" over some primitive tribe on the continent. This has put most of the region in turmoil and while Nantucket would like to intervene, there have more pressing matters elsewhere.

The Mediterranean Sea is the center of civilization. Here the great powers trade and maneuver for position. Relations between Tartessos and Nantucket have normalized since Walker's defeat. Most of the highborn young men (and some women) go to school in Nantucket and generally have a good opinion of Islander culture. Tartessos merchants compete with Nantucket across the globe, but their rulers try not to antagonize the Republic in exchange for Nantucket to look the other way as Tartessos expands across Western Europe and North Africa (Republic naval bases in West Africa are there to make sure they don't get any ideas about entering the local slave market). Although Tartessos is forward thinking enough that they do prepare for a potential conflict with the Republic and have looked into "submarines" as a viable way to fight Nantucket if worse comes to worse.

Despite what some doubters expected, Sicily managed to survive without suffering any nasty bouts of ethnic cleansing (although things were rough in the beginning). The tripartite democracy between the natives, Greek colonist and freed slaves (who are in agreement they need a better name to call themselves) has stood the test of time through their policy of not rocking the boat. Their neutral stance makes them the perfect place for the powers to settle disputes and conduct shady business dealings. That coupled with the nascent banking industry has brought a lot of wealth to the island and the prosperity has helped keep the peace.

Then there is Achaea, the number two power in the world, with its large and well trained army. Although driven out of the Middle East by Nantucket and her allies, this has not stopped their expansion into the Italian and Balkan peninsulas and their push into Western Ukraine. Under wise leadership of the aging Odikweus, Achaea has grown by leaps and bounds and any threats are dealt with accordingly (although only a few know the real reason why that small village on the Tiber had to be burned to the ground and the land salted so nothing could grow there again). Unlike Tartessos, Achaea's relations with Nantucket remain poor and they would like nothing better than for a strong leader to arise in Alba and take the island nation out of the Republic's sphere. Yet there is a growing threat to the east that has made the Achaean leadership rethink there relationship with Nantucket.

Changes in Babylon have worried not just Achaea, but Nantucket as well. Ever since the untimely death of King Kashtiliash and his Nantucket-born Queen, the empire has been ruled by an anti-Nantucket Regency until the heir comes of age. It has bullied its neighbors (the Hittite Empire, Mitanni and Egypt) into vassalage and is expanding hard into Persia. The regency has also been quashing the young democracy movement, who they blame for the death of their King. Nantucket has hoped to contain the growing threat of Babylon by sending emissaries to the Indus Valley civilizations and the growing power of Meroë (the diplomatic delegation includes the biological daughter of the former Walker lieutenant responsible for bringing the new learning to the region). Attempts were also made to court the Shang Dynasty of China, but without much luck. The King when he does deign to receive the Nantucket representatives is usually cold and dismissive of their proposals. There are rumors he is much more welcoming to a mysterious delegation from deep in Asia, but who they are remains a mystery to the Islanders.

For Althea Walker of the House of the Wolf and last true daughter of William Walker, that suits her purposes just fine. With the help of those still loyal to her father's memory, she has carved a small empire in the Fergana Valley and has untied the nomadic tribes under her Wolf's head banner. The Claws of Hekate continue to serve her and have been useful in helping her seek out new allies and eliminate any Nantucket spies who delve too deep into the interior. She has been biding her time, building her strength and waiting for the time when the Republic dominance of the waves means little to her new power.

A new faction has convinced her that time is right. They are a strange order of men who are extremely difficult to kill and have almost supernatural power over other humans. These "Seekers" believe the time is right for her to strike and proved their power to her by making Babylon more...acceptable as allies. Now with her Babylonian and Chinese allies to distract the Republic, she will drive her mounted army of carbine wielding warriors into the Indus Valley and India proper. With the wealth of the sub-continent to command, she will push aside her allies once they have weakened Nantucket and her allies and punish all those in Tartessos and Achaea who betrayed her father. Once Nantucket has been driven from the Old World, she will sail across the sea and burn Nantucket Town until there is nothing left.

As storm clouds gather in Asia, bizarre events are happening on Nantucket. People are having strange dreams about a disaster that happened to the world Nantucket left. They see burned out husks of once great metropolises where knights joust for sport and pagan rituals happen in forest preserves. Sightings of "ghosts" have also increased around Nantucket Town, even at the headquarters of the Coast Guard. People report seeing oddly dressed individuals gaping around at the buildings or walking as if in a daze before disappearing. While many in the Republic dismiss these reports as nonsense, older Nantucketers who remember the Event are not so sure. The Event was never really explained, what with survival overshadowing any serious investigation into what happened. What if these shared dreams and ghosts are somehow connected to what happened to Nantucket? Quietly, an informal task force headed by the Arnstein family has been created by several high ranking members within the Republic to investigate these phenomenons and the nature of the Event as well.

Who knows? Maybe they will even figure out how they were sent back in time, or more importantly, why.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

So You Want To Change The Past?

Guest post by Chris Nuttall.

Dale Cozort’s article on the Prime Directive and Alternate History got me thinking.

Star Trek’s Prime Directive was invented, in universe, by a post-scarcity society that didn’t really have much (if anything) at stake.  Most, if not all, of the Prime Directive issues that Kirk and Picard agonised over were unimportant to the Federation as a whole.  Certainly, the moral dilemma posed by the crisis was worrying, but it was not a major threat.

This cannot be said for people and societies that get moved back in time.  Nantucket in the ISOT universe needs food from the outside world; the only real way to avoid ‘contaminating’ history is to destroy themselves so completely that future archaeologists will find no trace of their existence.  The same can be said for Grantville in the 1632 series, although a case can be made that history was derailed the moment they arrived and Simpson’s grand plan to seal off Grantville was utterly useless.  It is a great deal easier to argue academically that interference is bad when you don't have to worry about starving, being killed and/or raped by local barbarians, enslaved by slave traders, infected by smallpox and a thousand other nasty fates.  What would Captain Picard have done if he’d been forced to spend the rest of his life in a far more hostile era?

There are plenty of stories about people and societies that go back in time and produce a better world, at least as they see it. Lest Darkness Fall, The Guns of the South, Island in the Sea of Time, to name, but a few.  But really...would it be as easy as you might think?

The most immediate problem is language.  Languages change.  Someone from the Britain of 2012 isn't going to be completely comprehensible to Winston Churchill in 1940, even though both of them seem to speak the same language.  How many ideas have entered our language since Churchill died?  He would not understand the use of the word ‘laser,’ for example, or ‘microcircuits.’  Both of them were largely developed after his time.  The same can be said of American English; chances are that George Washington would find it difficult, if not impossible, to talk to someone from our era.

This only gets worse as you go further back in time.  How many people speak whatever language the Aztecs spoke, as they spoke it?  I doubt there are many, if any.  The same goes for the Romans; our Latin is not their Latin.  A student of the Roman Empire might be able to make himself understood, but even he would find it difficult.  Someone from an ordinary background would have to learn to speak Roman Latin the hard way, which is not easy at all without a tutor who speaks both languages – and who will speak modern English in Ancient Rome?

So you go back in time to Rome, where you are effectively mute.  Can you overcome this barrier before it is too late, or will you simply wind up being enslaved, or starving to death on the streets?

The second problem is cultural.  Cultures change, and not always for the better.  A case can be made that the rise of Islam immensely improved the Middle East, only to see that early advantage lost as Islam splintered and the repression of independent thought started to spread out of control.  A Muslim from our era would probably not fit into the early Caliphate; how much stranger (to them) would someone from our world be in Ancient Rome?

Consider; the Romans believed that women should be seen and not heard.  Athens believed that women should be neither seen nor heard.  That’s at least partly why there are so few famous Roman women (and those that we do recall were often scandalous in their time).  In fact, the Romans nursed a fear of powerful women. Augustus had little difficulty drumming up support for war against Cleopatra because she was a foreign queen.  A single woman from our era is highly unlikely to be able to make changes on her own, unless she finds a powerful male ally and protector.  It is far more likely that she will be enslaved and lost in the great heaving mass of Roman slavery.  And those who think that slavery is somehow sexy have never actually been real slaves.

[I came across a woman who argued that she would have liked to be a slave in Rome, after reading a corny erotic novel on the subject that was rather less convincing than Stars and Stripes Forever.  One day, I will write a story that serves as a rebuttal to that story.]

It gets more complicated in other places.  The Confederate States of America believed, quite firmly, that black men were inferior.  They liberally sprinkled the term ‘nigger’ throughout their conversation and, if someone had pointed out how rude that was, they would have been frankly uncomprehending.  The word ‘nigger’ was not forbidden to them.  It would be extremely difficult to convince them that they were wrong; even the success of black soldiers fighting for the USA didn't change many minds.  Tell them that the 44th President of the United States was black and they’d think you were making it up.

Or...what if you tried to convince the Founding Fathers to ban slavery.  Many of them – even Washington – were slaveholders themselves, but let’s assume you succeeded.  It’s unlikely that the American South would go along with it; instead, they would split off from the northern states.  If your overall objective was to create a USA that had never had slavery, odds are you would have failed spectacularly.

The modern world spends literally decades agonising about justifying itself.  Millions of trees have been killed while the world debates over the rightness or wrongness of invading Iraq, the War on Terror, Global Warming (or Cooling)...the ancient world rarely bothered to justify itself so comprehensively.  Rome never really bothered to question its own right to rule an empire, not in the sense we do today. Even the most ‘moral’ Romans would be somewhat amoral by our standards.

If you want to make meaningful change, you’d have to understand just what you were dealing with – and that isn't easy.  There is a school of thought that claims that slaveholders were basically evil and, by extension, the CSA was evil.  Most people believe that to be true, but the Southerners themselves didn't see it that way.  Chattel slavery survived because it was immensely profitable, very much the underpinning of the South’s economy.  The same can be said for most issues throughout history.  Can you learn while fighting to stay alive?

[Star Trek points out that the Federation doesn't always know what’s going on, hence the idea that it is better to stay out of the whole affair.  But as I say above, the time traveller may have no choice.]

The third issue becomes knowledge.  What do you actually know?

Take a look around your room.  How much could you build completely from scratch, if you had no other choice?  I doubt the average citizen could produce much of anything (hence the reason most ISOT stories feature people with experience and skills denied by the average western citizen.)  Do you know enough about computers to go back to 1975 (when Bill Gates was starting his business career) and beat him to the punch?  I don’t – and how many people with computer skills would be completely familiar with the tech from 1975, if they were born in – say – 1990?  If you happened to go back further in time, everything you knew about modern computers would be completely useless.  You couldn't hope to produce even a BBC Basic computer in 1940, unless you happened to be Mr. Spock:

Spock: Captain, I must have some platinum. A small block would be sufficient, five or six pounds. By passing certain circuits through there to be used as a duo-dynetic field core...

Capt. Kirk: [interrupting] Uh, Mr. Spock, I've brought you some assorted vegetables, baloney and a hard roll for myself, and I've spent the other nine tenths of our combined salaries for the last three days on filling this order for you. Mr. Spock, this bag does not contain platinum, silver or gold, nor is it likely to in the near future.

Spock: Captain, you're asking me to work with equipment which is hardly very far ahead of stone knives and bearskins.

It actually gets more complicated as you delve into the past.  In 1632, the main character speaks of using what remains of a 20th century technological base to hammer out a 19th century technological base.  Grantville has enough people – and a knowledge base – to make that possible.  However, if you were on your own, would you even know the formula for gunpowder?  And if you did, could you make it?  Outside of people I know who served in the military – and, I suspect, not all of them – I know few people who could produce gunpowder completely from scratch.

Even if you can, it doesn't solve all of the problems.  Primitive cannons were regarded as somewhat unreliable, partly because they could explode if shoddily made.  Not because of deliberate malice, but because metalworking wasn't entirely up to the task.  Accidents were not uncommon and they could be disastrous.  There were also problems when putting early firearms up against archers; it wasn't until the first set of bugs was ironed out that archers became obsolete.

Other things are easier.  Pretty much everyone with any sense knows that untreated water can be dangerous, and the simplest way of dealing with it is boiling it to kill the germs.  Plenty of epidemics spread through the pre-1900 world because no one knew to boil water, or wash their hands after going to the toilet, or understood exactly how diseases moved from victim to victim.  (Considering the AIDS crisis, where the exact method of transmission was not very well understood for decades, it isn't something uncommon even today.)  You could save millions of lives in Rome, for example, just by insisting on scrubbing the room where someone gives birth.  Poor sanitation accounted for a terrifyingly high rate of death in childbirth; maybe, if you could convince someone to have the room scrubbed with soap and water, you might save lives.  What if you saved Julia Caesar, the wife of Pompey the Great, from her untimely death?

There are two problems with this that need to be addressed.  The first is that the locals might not understand germ theory when you explain it to them.  It wasn't really considered until the American Civil War and, for quite some time, there were doctors who didn't take it seriously.  The second is that the local medical establishment might resist your new innovations.  You would be threatening their livelihoods.

That, as I mentioned above, is something else to keep in mind.  People tend to be guided more by ‘what’s in it for me?’  Slaveholders will resist you trying to ban slavery because it would mean the end of their livelihoods.  Generals might object to you introducing gunpowder because it would put too much power in the hands of barbarian tribes; landlords would oppose it because it would give their peasants too much power.  Pretty much everything you introduce will upset someone.

On the other hand, the people from the past are not stupid.  Give them a concept (as the Romans learned from Carthage) and they will probably be better than you at figuring out how to adapt it to their technology.  I could design a steam engine; someone from the Roman Republic might be able to actually build it.  They’d also probably be more capable of developing technology to match your concepts, because they’d know more about where they were starting from.

And there are all kinds of tidbits you could pass on to someone from the past, even if they’re not primarily technological.  What about Arabic numerals and English letters, so much more useful than anything from Ancient Rome, or even something as simple as stirrups?  Or what about America?  If you went back in time before Columbus, you’d know about the vast American continent just waiting to be discovered and exploited.  What if you told the British of 1812 that there were vast gold fields in California just waiting to be discovered?  Or oil in Saudi Arabia?

The fourth major problem receives less attention in alternate history than I would expect, although it is actually quite a serious issue.  Disease.  The locals may well be more immune to local diseases than you (for a given value of immune); smallpox will kill anyone from our era who doesn't happen to be vaccinated.  (Can you convince them to use cowpox to generate immunity to smallpox?  Would you recognise cowpox when you saw it?)  Any time-travelling mission will have to take that into account.

The fifth major problem concerns supplies.  What if you take a modern carrier back to 1940?  That’s nice, but what happens when the carrier runs out of missiles, bombs, bullets and jet fuel?  Modern-day cruise missiles are completely irreplaceable by any pre-2000 tech base, so if your carrier goes back to 1941 (as in The Final Countdown) there will be no resupply of everything you have with you.  You might end up sinking the Japanese Navy and then having to return to America, working with the locals to build up their tech base.

If you happen to be completely on your own...realistically, what can you have with you?

That is not to say that you can't get a good story out of an ISOT.  I’ve read and written many.  But there are issues that have to be considered carefully before you start writing.  In the end, knowing what you’re talking about allows you to present the past to the reader in its true nature, rather than hackneyed clinches and stereotypes.  Do plenty of research – and don’t be afraid to be politically incorrect.

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Chris Nuttall blogs at The Chrishanger and has a website by the same name. His books can be found on Amazon Kindle. Check out his upcoming book The Royal Sorceress.