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Jonbar Hinge
In science-fiction criticism, a Jonbar hinge or Jonbar point is the fictional concept of a crucial point of divergence between two outcomes, especially in time-travel stories. It is sometimes referred to as a Jon Bar hinge or change-point. Origin The phrase is derived from the Jack Williamson novel '' The Legion of Time'' (serialized 1938, collected 1952). It refers to one action from its character John Barr, whose picking up of one of two objects (a magnet or a pebble) is a major turning point in history: choosing one will lead to a utopian civilization named Jonbar, while the other to the tyranny of the state of Gyronchi. This crucial moment (about which other characters are forewarned and must act), is thus a "Jonbar point" in the novel's timeline, a forking-place upon which hinges the rest of its history. Background Jonbar hinges often refer to small nondescript events that had an important effect on history, but time travel caused the outcome of the choice or event to be chan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science-fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has become po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical History of ancient Israel and Judah, Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternate History
Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternative history stories propose ''What if?'' scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from the historical record. Alternate history also is a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; as literature, alternate history uses the tropes of the genre to answer the ''What if?'' speculations of the story. Since the 1950s, as a subgenre of science fiction, alternative history stories feature the tropes of time travel between histories, and the psychic awareness of the existence of an alternative universe, by the inhabitants of a given universe; and time travel that divides history into various timestreams. In the Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
For Want Of A Nail
"For Want of a Nail" is a proverb, having numerous variations over several centuries, reminding that seemingly unimportant acts or omissions can have grave and unforeseen consequences. Analysis The proverb has come down in many variations over the centuries. It describes a situation where there is a failure to predict or correct a minor issue; the minor issue escalates and compounds itself into a major issue. The rhyme's implied small difference in initial conditions is the lack of a spare horseshoe nail, relative to a condition of its availability. At a more literal level, it expresses the importance of military logistics in warfare. Related sayings are "A stitch, in time, saves nine" and "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". A somewhat similar idea is referred to in the metaphor known as the camel's nose. Historical references The proverb is found in a number of forms, beginning as early as the 13th century: *Middle High German (positively formulat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterfactual History
Counterfactual history (also virtual history) is a form of historiography that attempts to answer the '' What if?'' questions that arise from counterfactual conditions. As a method of intellectual enquiry, counterfactual history explores history and historical incidents by extrapolating a timeline in which key historical events either did not occur or had an outcome different from the actual historical outcome. Counterfactual history seeks by "conjecturing on what did not happen, or what might have happened, in order to understand what did happen." It has produced a literary genre which is variously called alternate history, speculative history, allohistory, and hypothetical history. Development An early book of counterfactual histories is ''If It Had Happened Otherwise'' (1931) which features "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle at Gettysburg", by Winston Churchill, about a fictional Confederate victory at the Battle of Gettysburg (1863). As a text of counterfactual histories writte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alien Space Bats
"Alien space bats" ("ASBs") is a neologism for plot devices used in alternate history to mean an implausible point of divergence. Definition "Alien space bats" originally was used as a sarcastic attack on poorly-written alternate histories seen as being implausible. The attacks are usually phrased as the need for "alien space bats" or by saying that the alternate history has gone into "ASB territory". The term eventually evolved into a reference to ''deus ex machina'' to create an impossible point of divergence. Examples include changes to the physical laws of nature, time travel, and advanced aliens interfering in human affairs. An example of the last change is Harry Turtledove's ''Worldwar'' series. History The term "alien space bats" was coined and popularized in the Usenet group soc.history.what-if. Alison Brooks (1959–2002), credited as the creator of the term, used it to debunk the possibility of a successful Operation Sea Lion by saying that Nazi Germany could successfull ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee's invasion of the North. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point due to the Union's decisive victory and concurrence with the Siege of Vicksburg.Rawley, p. 147; Sauers, p. 827; Gallagher, ''Lee and His Army'', p. 83; McPherson, p. 665; Eicher, p. 550. Gallagher and McPherson cite the combination of Gettysburg and Vicksburg as the turning point. Eicher uses the arguably related expression, " High-water mark of the Confederacy". After his success at Chancellorsville in Virginia in May 1863, Lee led his army through the Shenandoah Valley to begin his second ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert E
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ward Moore
Joseph Ward Moore (August 10, 1903 – January 29, 1978) was an American science fiction writer. According to ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', "he contributed only infrequently to the field, uteach of his books became something of a classic." Writer Moore began publishing with the novel ''Breathe the Air Again'' (1942), about the onset of the Great Depression. The story is told from multiple viewpoints, and Ward Moore himself appears briefly as a character in the novel. His most famous work is the alternate history novel ''Bring the Jubilee'' (1953). This novel, narrated by Hodge Backmaker, tells of a world in which the South won the American Civil War, leaving the North in ruins. Moore's other novels include ''Cloud By Day'', in which a brush fire threatens a town in Topanga Canyon; ''Greener Than You Think'', a novel about unstoppable Bermuda grass; ''Joyleg'' (co-authored with Avram Davidson), which assumes the survival of the State of Franklin; and ''Caduceus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bring The Jubilee
''Bring the Jubilee'' is a 1953 novel of alternate history by American writer Ward Moore. The point of divergence occurs in July 1863 when the Confederate States of America wins the Battle of Gettysburg and subsequently declares victory in a conflict referred to within the book as the " War of Independence" on July 4, 1864, after the surrender of the United States of America. The novel takes place in the impoverished rump United States in the mid-20th century as war looms between the Confederacy and its rival, the German Union. History takes an unexpected turn when the protagonist Hodge Backmaker, a historian, decides to travel back in time to witness the moment when the South won the war. The phrase "Bring the Jubilee" is a reference to the chorus of the popular military song "Marching Through Georgia". Setting History In the wake of Robert E. Lee's great victory at the Battle of Gettysburg and subsequent capture of Philadelphia, the United States was forced to recog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
